


Made In The Morning

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Angst, Assumptions, Bathrooms, Denial of Feelings, Domestic, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Families of Choice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Goodbyes, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Misunderstandings, Moving, Moving On, Romantic Friendship, Separations, Sexual Content, Shaving, Team as Family, Technology, Texting, Travel, We Just Love Each Other, we need to talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:32:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 39,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8126996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: It’s been three years since Prentiss moved to London. But one case back working with her BAU colleagues and it’s like nothing has changed. Until an early morning with Reid gets weird, and then everything they thought they knew about one another gets turned on its head. This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains sexual content and adult situations and should not be read by those under the age of 18.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic starts during “Tribute” from season 11 and while it contains certain elements from that episode, it should be considered an AU. Since, as of this posting date, season 12 hasn’t aired yet, everything that follows after “Tribute” was informed by my imagination (I’m also handwaving the existence of the new team member because I know nothing about him at this point).
> 
> This story was inspired by several prompts from dionne_2k (“Mamihlapinatapai”, “Prentiss gets angry when Reid says that no one understands him”, and probably some others as well - they get all jumbled in my head) as well as one from brumeier on comment_fic (Author's choice, author's choice, Made in the A.M.). Thanks to both lovely ladies, without whom I'd still be staring at a blank Word document.

Reid yawned in the mirror’s reflection like he was going to unhinge his jaw and then smeared the shaving cream across his cheeks. He was trying to hurry but felt as if he were made of lead this morning – too much hunting and coffee yesterday and too little sleep last night. The void of caffeine seemed noticeable, like going to work with only one sock. But he mustered what energy he had because Prentiss would need the bathroom soon. Just as he unfolded his straight razor, she appeared in the reflection behind him, rumpled and panicked.

“We’ve gotta be at the sheriff’s department by seven. Why didn’t you wake me?”

He shuffled to the edge of the sink without thinking as she rushed forward and began pulling out her war paint. He raised his razor and made a swipe, unperturbed by her distress.

“You looked like you could use the extra sleep,” he said.

She peered at him in the mirror, her face damp where she’d splashed water on it. “So do you.”

“Hmmmm.” She was right but he just kept shaving. A few strokes later he realized that she was still watching him. “What?”

“All of the years that we’ve had to share a hotel room while working a case and I’ve never seen you do that.” She nodded at his razor. “There’s something soothing about watching a man shave.”

He lowered his hands slightly and looked at her. He was glad that the flush she’d caused was hidden under the shaving foam.

“I’m just saying, it’s nice. Something average and comfortable, ya know?”

“Sure.” He had no idea what she meant but he wished he did. He turned back to face himself in the mirror. “I’ll be done soon and out of your hair. Promise.”

“No hurry,” she said, quickly brushing her hair and tying it back like an afterthought. “I’m going with minimal armor today. No time for full camouflage.”

He chuckled as she sorted out her make-up and began applying it with the same sort of half-conscious attention that he imagined she saw in his shaving technique. He forgot about the foam cooling across his face as he watched her assess, apply, adjust and move on as the woman she presented to the world slowly took shape. He realized that almost everyone only saw one side of her, but she let him see both versions. Even now, when they worked for different agencies and barely saw each other more than a few times per year, she had no qualms about lowering her guard around him. He stood next to her in the cramped hotel bathroom and was scandalized that he’d taken that for granted for years. A strand of her hair had come loose and lay damp and curled against the side of her neck where she’d missed drying herself. He suddenly wanted to brush it away, sweep the lock up and help make her mask perfect. He didn’t want anyone to see this part of her but him.

“You okay?” She glanced at him quickly in the mirror before she zeroed in on her eyeliner.

“Yep,” he gulped and began to focus ruthlessly on his shaving.

He worked swiftly, trying to simultaneously get out of her way while also attempting to get her attention with the odd flourish here and there. In the end, he felt foolish and decided to put the punchy behavior down to lack of sleep and coffee. Things would all go back to normal after his first cup. He excused himself without meeting her eyes in the mirror as he leaned to rinse over the sink, brushing her arm with the barest of touches. He focused on the cool water, the rough, overwashed terrycloth of the towel afterwards, and then the sharp note of his aftershave momentarily snapping him awake. He didn’t linger on the warm contact of her arm that remained pressed against him throughout. When he finally looked at his reflection to gage the state of his hair, he found her giving him a fond smile. Without the mask of shaving foam, he felt in imminent danger of revealing another blush so he pulled back and made a grand gesture towards the counter to cover it.

“It’s all yours. I’ll leave you to it.” He tried to make it sound funny, or sleepy, or both.

Her hand suddenly landed on his arm, stopping him. Her fingers wrapped around and then up, coming to rest on his bicep under his worn t-shirt.

“Wait. You missed a spot.”

She reached up with her free hand and flicked a fingertip along the edge of his sideburn, retreating with a smudge of foam that she showed him with a silly grin.

“There. Now you’re perfect.”

He rolled his eyes and snorted softly. _Hardly._ He expected her to release him but she continued holding his arm and smiling in a way that he couldn’t quite categorize. It was… familiar – like she’d mentioned earlier: average and comfortable. It honestly wasn’t something that he knew much about. He waited patiently, and then raised an eyebrow when she didn’t do anything.

“Something else out of place?”

“Not at all,” she murmured thoughtfully. “And that’s a little weird because I’m not very good at ‘domestic’…”

“Is that what this is?” He said it more like a statement than a question even though he found her behavior this morning confusing from start to finish. “I don’t really know what that’s like.”

“Me neither.” She tilted her head to one side, remembering. “I haven’t lived with anyone since college, and even then I don’t think a pot-smoking roommate counts as intimate.”

 _Intimate?_ He ignored the descriptor and stayed with a safer topic. “Your college roommate was a stoner?”

She nodded and smiled. “In four years I never saw her go to a single class. On the upside, she was extremely mellow and we had a constant supply of Doritos.”

Laughter bubbled out of him quickly. “I suppose there are worse problems to have. And now I’m thinking about how great coffee and corn chips sound for breakfast…”

“Not on my watch, dear,” she mock-scolded him, dipping a toe back into that strange familiarity that she never seemed to share with anyone else. “Just because I’ve seen you in your pajamas doesn’t mean that you can let it all hang out now.”

“Alright,” he grinned and, flushed with bravery, swept the errant lock of hair from her neck and tucked it back into the knot behind her. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

Once the moment passed and his hand fell away from her, he regretted the playfulness. He immediately felt awkward and trapped, her hand still gripping his arm tightly. She gusted out something that was meant to sound like laughter but didn’t quite manage it. His eyes flicked to the open doorway, flipping through possible statements that could get him safely released and back to the reality he understood. Man, none of this would’ve happened if he’d just had coffee before cleaning up…

“We’d better hurry…” he croaked desperately, wanting to be out of the bathroom so badly he could taste it.

“Yeah, crime waits for no one.” But her grip tightened as she drew him in and then her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. Just a brief press and then she pulled back, hand rubbing his arm as she did. He felt himself go slack all over – he must have been a sight because she laughed. “Besides, I can’t reveal all of my beauty secrets to you. Have to maintain a little mystery.”

She was blushing noticeably and that floored him, and she was _still_ holding him. He felt as though what little sleep he’d gotten had transported him to an alternate reality where he was the sort of Reid who casually flirted with friends in bathrooms before the sun rose. He wondered what Casually Flirty Reid would do in a situation like this. One thing was certain – he had to do _something_ or they’d be stuck in that bathroom until someone came looking for them. Maybe it was exhaustion or the fantasy of being another, braver version of himself, but his hand rose and skimmed the edge of her neck, coming to rest just under her jaw. She watched him silently, with stillness and interest as he held her, and then, to his everlasting shock, he drew her close and kissed her. It wasn’t flirty or a joke, and it certainly wasn’t a mistake; he’d have to bear the consequences of it, whatever they were. Tension jolted through him, twisting his stomach and squeezing his chest until it ached, but then her lips parted under his, her head tilted into his pressure, and her body came to lean against his, waist to shoulders. His other hand rose to cradle her face as he shuffled closer, changing their angle and making his intentions plain. The kiss was soft, warm, unabashedly attentive and he wondered if kisses like this faded with time, whether they fell victim to understanding and familiarity. He’d known Emily for years, but all of this had been made this morning.

He slipped away from her eventually, a little out of breath and pulse hammering in his throat. His shock at his actions was absolute because this wasn’t who he was at all. But he suspected that, with time, he could become very good at it. What was the term she’d used? _Domestic._ He’d never considered it for himself before, but as he stood watching her, one hand still cupping her face and the other possessively looped around her waist, fingers edged under her shirt at the hem – yes, he thought, this is something to desire. Quiet, comfortable intimacy – God, who wouldn’t want to be known that way?

“Ummm…” he huffed when she didn’t say anything.

“Good thing I hadn’t gotten to the lipstick yet.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” His cheeks heated and his hands fell away.

“Don’t,” she said quickly before he could escape. “Wait… I just wanna try…”

She leaned back in and kissed him again. It was less intense but just as soft and he started to feel liquid all over thinking that he’d be happy to do this for days. Her tongue quickly licked his lower lip before she pressed herself hard against his cheek, burrowing a little like a contented cat. She breathed in deeply and then let it out, tickling his neck in the process. He scrunched against her in response and she grabbed him by his sides and held him close while she laughed.

“Just wanted to taste the aftershave. I’ve always liked the smell.”

“Huh. Really?” He was secretly delighted by that.

“I’ve given up trying to figure out if it’s the brand I like, or just a learned association with you.” She backed up so that she could look him in the eye.

“I’m pulling for the latter, personally,” he said seriously.

“Me too,” she laughed, her face breaking out into shock all her own. Silence swallowed them up again as they just stared at each other. _This is ridiculous,_ he thought, _one of us has to get out of here…_

“Well, ummm… we’re gonna be really late, so I’m… gonna go now.” He backed away, breaking her hold on him, and shuffled around her awkwardly. “And you have your, ummm, lips to put on…”

His voice broke over the word ‘lips’ and then he stared at them, and then he was just mortified. So much for Casually Flirty Reid. He heard her laugh softly and it made him brave enough to look at her again. Her face was rosy, eyes bright with a mischief he’d missed.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said spontaneously, chest aching a little. “Even if it’s just temporary.”

“I’m glad too,” she said quietly. “Feels like… I dunno, home, maybe?”

“London doesn’t feel like home? Even after all this time?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great city. But some places are just special, ya know? Some days London still feels like a place where I’m crashing on a friend’s couch.”

His eyebrows rose. He wondered if she felt that way about Mark as well. Just as he tried to forget he’d thought that in the first place, his mouth went ahead and ruined his plans.

“Mark probably finds that distressing…”

She pulled back a little, her face hiding some of the casualness that the morning had fostered between them. “I’d rather not talk about him if you don’t mind,” she murmured.

He starting nodding ferociously and backed his way out of the bathroom. “Of course, no problem. I’ll just… I’ll… let me know when you’re ready and we’ll head down together, okay?”

She took one step to follow him and then stopped, a worried crease between her eyebrows. “Reid?”

“Yeah?” He stopped and half-turned back to the bathroom. He made sure that his body language said that he was going to get ready for the day, and not fall back towards her. _We have to get out of here…_

She hesitated, looking very worried for a split second, and then she shook it off. “I’ll be out in five. Promise.”

“Sure thing,” he smiled and walked back into the main room. Inside his head he added ‘sweetheart’ to the end of his statement and felt the warmth of it bloom within him again. It seemed like that endearment was going to stick.

He got dressed quickly and then got distracted by the notes he’d made about their suspect’s detailed M.O. just as quickly. He didn’t notice when she left the bathroom, and actually twitched a little when she asked him if he was ready to leave. He nodded and collected his files, hustling out of the room after her. In the elevator he tried to shuffle what he was carrying and knot his tie one-handed until he heard her sigh beside him.

“Reid, I swear to God…” she huffed affectionately as she swatted his hand away and retied his tie. Inside his head, he’d switch out the ‘Reid’ of her statement for ‘dear’.

Her fingers aligned his collar and then he could feel the warmth of her palms soothe along his shoulders and down his chest to make him presentable. It was casual again, like they’d always done this, but still he couldn’t seem to catch his breath or look away from the quiet amusement in her eyes. He didn’t understand what was happening; they’d always been close but never like this. And yet it seemed as though they’d both gravitated towards it naturally. But there was the reality of their situation, that she lived in another country, and then there was Mark. The fact that he was even considering the obstacles between them gave him a sharp wake-up call from his thoughts. He shifted uncomfortably when he considered how far he’d traveled down a path based on sharing a room and a kiss with an old friend.

“You okay?” she raised an eyebrow at him as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open to the hotel lobby.

“Yeah, just fuzzy. I need coffee.”

She watched him for a second, half smiling but also trying to read something in his face, and then the moment moved on without them.

“Me too,” she shrugged and they walked out into the lobby. “I know a place we can hit on the way to the PD.”

“Oh, _outstanding,_ ” he groaned appreciatively.

She laughed and nudged his side as they both walked out of the hotel to face the day.


	2. Chapter 2

That evening, he buried himself in witness statements and autopsy reports as he sat on his bed and tried to avoid wondering what women did in bathrooms at night that took so much time to achieve. Prentiss had been in there for ages and, although a shower had clearly been a part of it, he couldn’t help but worry that she might be avoiding him. And, he thought guiltily, it’s not as if she didn’t have reason to since he was essentially waiting to sandbag her as soon as she came back into the room. His paperwork was just a ruse to stay awake until that happened. As the day wore on, he’d felt increasingly guilty about his behavior. He’d taken liberties with Prentiss that he shouldn’t have and it felt like he’d put their friendship at risk as a result. And she had a boyfriend. It was inexcusable and he wanted to address it before either one of them decided to make it weird.

The bathroom door opened and Prentiss stepped out dressed in a worn pair of FBI jogging pants and a Cure t-shirt. She looked at him and blinked, and immediately gave him a relaxed smile that surprised him. She shook her head and walked toward her bed.

“I never get used to seeing you in glasses.”

He let out a relieved sigh. Maybe he was the one being weird here. “I actually hate my contacts, but they’re the safest option for field work.” He shrugged. “If I lost my glasses during a case, I’d be reduced to being a blind victim standing in the middle of the road somewhere. Completely useless.”

“You’re exaggerating.” Prentiss rolled her eyes as she sat on the edge of her bed.

He removed his glasses and held them out for her to try. She plucked them from his grip, put them on, and then whistled long and low before giving them back to him.

“Christ, Reid, how are you not considered legally blind?”

He settled the glasses back over his nose and then arched an eyebrow at her. “Because I’m crafty, that’s how.” She snorted and he grinned. It felt good and he hated to ruin the moment, but…

“Hey, Prentiss?” He cleared his throat roughly. “About this morning…”

“What about it?” She was rubbing lotion on her hands and giving him a look of complete innocence.

“Ummm, well, I feel like I need to apologize. For the… you know, the bathroom incident.” Wow, could he have made that any more awkward?

“The ‘Bathroom Incident’? It has an official title now?” He could tell that she was shooting for humor but her expression was worried. “There’s nothing to apologize for, Reid.”

“Well, I kinda think there is. I’m not _that_ guy… I want you to know that.”

“What kind of guy are you talking about?”

“The kind who flirts with friends. The kind who kisses a friend who’s seeing someone else. I’m really not like that and I’m sorry. I feel bad.”

She stared at him, her expression unreadable, and then she turned away and began to punch her pillow into shape.

“Well, I’m sorry that you feel sorry about it,” she said quietly. He felt his face heat and his eyebrows rise.

“What does that mean?”

“I guess it means that I didn’t intend to make you feel bad. And if anyone deserves blame for it, it’s me because I started it.” She slid under the sheets and sunk down into the pillows. He continued watching and waiting but she just blinked at him as if she were doing the same thing. He wanted to ask her _why_ she’d started it but thought that he might not be comfortable with her answer.

“Emily,” he breathed out hesitantly. “You’re my friend and you know that I love you, right? ‘Cause after all of the things that have happened to us while doing this job, I don’t want anyone I care about to be unsure on that score.”

“I know it, Spencer. I do,” she sighed. “Don’t worry.”

“Okay,” he huffed, feeling a little better but not completely. She watched him for another minute and he felt sure that she was going to say something else, but then she gave him a small smile instead.

“I’m gonna hit the hay.”

“Yeah, okay.” He started shuffling his papers into a loose pile. “I’ll put out the light in a minute.”

“No hurry.” She rolled away from him and faced the wall. He felt as though he’d offended her but he couldn’t puzzle out how. He puttered around for another minute or two, and then he took off his glasses and turned out the light. He lay on his side facing into the darkness between their beds, wide awake despite getting little sleep the night before. It felt like there was more to be said. He’d told her that he wasn’t the guy from this morning, and he wasn’t - not the confident, cheating sort anyway. But he hadn’t told that he wished he could be the man who was familiar and casual with her. He wished that he could be known that way by someone, and that someone would want him to know them like that as well. But he didn’t have that experience, and he didn’t have a right to it with her. He thought about that for a long time, long after he’d imagined that she’d fallen asleep. And then her voice made him twitch when he realized she was awake too.

“I wish you didn’t feel sorry about it,” she whispered. “Because I enjoyed it.”

He lay there taut as piano wire blinking into the darkness. He didn’t know if she thought he was asleep or not, and he really didn’t know how to respond. Some ancient instinct born in his limbic system pushed him to cross the divide and slip under her covers with her. It told him to collect her up, to caress and kiss and mark her, to push into her and make her his, British boyfriend and years of friendship be damned. But he stayed where he was and tried to comprehend the power of that impulse, and why it had never before raised its head in the ten years between them.

She didn’t say anything else and in time he heard the soft, easy rhythm of her breathing. He rolled onto his back, still tight as a drum, and huffed in exhausted confusion. He didn’t sleep at all that night, staring at the ceiling instead wondering if he’d lost something or gained something new.


	3. Chapter 3

The case ended, the gang came together for a victory dinner, and then she flew back to London. At the dinner, when everyone was deep in their cups, she’d gripped his arm and told him that he should visit her in England. The wine had brought color to her face and sparkle to her enthusiasm and he’d smiled back when he saw it because it was infectious. He’d lied and said he’d think about it, and then felt awful when he saw that she’d bought the line completely and seemed excited by the prospect.

“I’ll line up all sorts of nerdy things to do,” she whispered conspiratorially while she squeezed his arm again and for a moment all he could think about was how great that sounded.

Then it was back to real life: more cases, dealing with the loss of Morgan, publishing his latest paper… They fell back into emailing each other when they had the chance. They updated each other about their lives with a shorthand that kept them safely connected but not intimately so. She asked him to get Garcia to set him up with a Skype account so they could talk more often but he dodged it by citing how easy it was for a third party to gain control of someone’s laptop camera. He didn’t think it was safe for them, but online hackers hadn’t been his worry when he raised the concern. He thought about her all the time now. He thought about why she’d done what she did on that last case, especially when it seemed to have risen from nowhere and that it didn’t have a future. He thought about their years in the unit together and couldn’t help seeing them filtered through this new view he had of her; he wondered if their closeness had always been headed in this direction, or whether one instance was hopelessly warping his perspective on it. He thought about her and Mark, and then hated how angry it made him.

He wouldn’t Skype but he agreed to a self-deleting text messaging app when she pushed him. He figured words on a screen that would be erased later was safer than video, but it was just a shell game he was playing with himself. He learned how dangerous self-delusion could be when she interrupted him from research into his latest project one evening.

\- I’m bored. What are you up to? -

* Doing a comparative overview of papal diets published between 900A.D. through the High Renaissance to identify ideological influences and suppression vis a vis shifting geopolitical stances, economic growth, and the splintering of the faith in Germany and England *

\- Oh good, so you’re bored too. We can chat… -

He chuckled to himself. He’d be loathed to admit it, but his current research was on the dry side.

* What are you working on? *

\- Trying to nail a team out of the Ukraine that are smuggling medical radioactive material to Mideast terrorist groups for dirty bombs. Just a day ending in ‘y’ here. -

* Doesn’t sound boring *

\- Maybe. I wonder what ‘boring’ is for normal people? -

He laughed again.

* House payments and little league schedules and meetings about meetings? *

\- LOL. Sometimes, that doesn’t sound all that bad. -

* Perspective is a frustrating temptress. There’s nothing stopping you from being bored by both Ukrainian arms dealers and house payments, you know… *

\- Yes, there is. -

He waited for her to expand on that thought, but she didn’t and then his brain started spinning out reasons why she’d say that and then drop it.

* ??? *

There was a lag of almost a full minute before she responded.

\- When are you coming to visit? -

He blinked. He’d never promised her that, in fact, he’d been very careful to avoid any personal promises whatsoever.

* Can’t now. We’re pretty busy. *

\- That won’t ever change. You have to make time. -

It felt like she was chastising him and that aggravated him a little.

* You could come here *

\- I do, as often as I can. But I probably can’t make it for another few months at least. -

He wondered why she couldn’t wait a few months for a visit.

\- It feels like you don’t want to come here. -

Yep, she was definitely chastising him. When had she decided that he was beholden to her for this? He tried to deflect with humor while he puzzled that out. Thank God they weren’t on Skype for this…

* I have a pathological fear of tea and people who drop their ‘h’s in conversation. Can’t come. *

There was another lag between them and he had a sudden, irrational stab of worry that he was losing her, but losing _what_ about her, he wasn’t certain.

* Is everything all right? *

\- I just miss you. That’s all. -

His eyes hurt as he read the words. He read them over and over, and it hurt every single time he did it.

* I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. *

\- That’s very true. It appears that neither one of us is going anywhere. -

The conversation was starting to feel dangerously coded. For once he felt the chasm between what words could express and what face-to-face contact could offer.

* Perhaps we should say what we really mean *

\- What? -

* I’ll start: I never said that I’d visit you in London, and I have no intention of doing so. I also miss you too and I apologize if these sentiments seem mutually exclusive. *

She took a long time to respond and the fear of losing her was slowly solidifying into a certainty in his gut.

\- That was pretty hurtful. Why won’t you come? -

* You know why *

\- No, I don’t -

* Mark *

There, he’d got it out. In one name he’d told her that he felt more than just friendship _and_ that he wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle to anyone. He wasn’t that kind of guy and, really, he shouldn’t have to explain that about himself to her.

\- I told you that I don’t want to talk about him -

He growled at the screen and then tapped out his response with angry clacks on the keyboard.

* That’s your business but whatever he is to you, don’t start asking things of me at the same time. I don’t know what’s going on with you but this whole situation feels pretty disrespectful to everyone involved. *

\- You don’t know my life, Reid. And I wasn’t inviting you for a trans-Atlantic booty call. -

For a moment, he stared at her words and wondered if he had spectacularly miscalculated her intentions. Sure, they’d kissed and it felt intimate in a new way _to him_ , but what if things remained the same for her? She’d never mentioned that she wanted anything more than friendship from him. His face flamed with humiliation and he blinked back a new anger that was directed at himself.

* I’m sorry. I think I may have made a mistake. *

\- I’m sorry too -

A full minute passed and she didn’t add anything further. He felt as if he were shriveling, shrinking away under her unseeing, digital presence. _You just screwed over one of the best friendships you’ve ever had, Genius._

* I’m gonna sign off *

\- Okay -

\- Please don’t let this change us -

* I think it already has *

\- Please, Reid -

* Gotta go. Be safe. *

He closed the window before she could respond and then he shut down his computer for good measure. He stared at it sitting on his coffee table for over an hour imagining that he’d somehow trapped a vestige of their friendship in its hard drive where it would stay safe forever, no matter what stupid shit he did.


	4. Chapter 4

A few weeks of silence fell between them, and every minute of it cut him down. Whatever they’d brought to life, it felt as though he’d ruined it thoroughly. He didn’t know what she wanted from him, and he resolutely refused to be her second choice, but he also ached to have their closeness back as if it were something he’d been looking for and given up hope of finding.

Then, miraculously, they began tentatively emailing once again without mentioning anything. They shared very little that was personal - mostly just work updates or tidbits of general, mutual interest - and Reid felt vaguely nauseated after reading each note. They’d broken something, together or separately, and they were now changed despite her plea to him. He wanted to avoid her altogether and couldn’t believe the impulse. He suddenly understood why people cut their exes out of their lives, but then he reminded himself that Prentiss wasn’t an ex. He was mortified by his cowardice and deeply depressed about losing something that had taught him so much, given his life so much color. Four months after their fateful messaging session and all they could manage were notes about the weather, bad sci-fi jokes, and questions about pathologies. 

She never brought up him visiting her again and didn’t drop any hints as to whether she’d return to the States any time soon. Either she’d been telling the truth about her inability to get away sooner, or she hadn’t felt an urgent need to visit. He wondered if she still missed him and he flamed with humiliation when he realized that just thinking about that _hurt_.

So he was naturally disturbed when he walked into the bullpen one Monday morning and momentarily thought he’d traveled back in time when he saw Prentiss leaning against her old desk like it was any other day. He blinked and swallowed hard wondering if his much anticipated psychotic break had finally claimed him for no reason whatsoever, but then she turned, saw him and smiled cautiously as if he’d yell at her if she did it incorrectly. This was their new reality, the new _her_ he realized, not an illusion. His (former?) friend lounged against the desk that had been Seaver’s and Callahan’s and Blake’s and Lewis’s but had always remained _Prentiss’s_ in his mind, and waited for him to react. Was she here for him? That didn’t seem likely no matter what his suddenly-thundering heartbeat tried to assert. They hadn’t shared anything personal for months and she’d given him no warning of her visit. He shrugged nervously, settled his glasses across his nose, and tried to calm his pulse as he strode to his own desk to drop his things. It was early and most of the bullpen was still empty; he felt it was safe to stare at her if for no other reason than to get it out of the way before anyone noticed how befuddled she made him now.

“Hi.” She was still leaning on the desk, eyes riveted to him, smiling. It was unnerving.

“Hello.” It came out shakier than he intended. He adjusted his glasses again to cover it and then focused on how she couldn’t seem to look away from him. _This is nuts - she’s not here for you. She couldn’t be… not after what you’ve said to her. And even if she were, she wouldn’t make a scene at work. That’s not her style._

She blinked noticeably and then shook her head smiling as she did so. “You in glasses. It’s still weird.”

“Oh,” he blushed, feeling ridiculous. “Umm, yeah. I got a new prescription but the contacts weren’t right. I had to send them back. So, I guess I’m Mr. Magoo until the lab straightens that out.”

She laughed softly, drawing his eyes back to her. “You’re not a cartoon, Reid. It’s a good look on you. Sort of… arresting, actually.”

His mind spiraled back to that night at the hotel in Chicago when everything between them had started to go wrong. When he’d apologized and she’d said that she’d wished he hadn’t. He wondered if things would be better or worse _now_ if he’d followed his instincts _then_. If he’d slipped into her bed that night, would they have just worked it out of their systems? Would they be strangers now (or _more_ estranged than this)? Would they be something more? He cleared his throat, stowing the heat his thoughts brought up away in some dark, airtight part of himself.

“What are you doing here?” he murmured.

Her smile flickered ever so slightly, and then her eyes cast about trying to find something safe to focus on.

“Task force,” a deeper voice mumbled from behind Reid causing him to twitch a little. He turned and saw Hotch scowling, but with a look of apology around his eyes. “Garcia’s been tracking some odd chatter in various unsavory places on the Dark Net for a while now. Not the usual sort of thing we deal with - this is more politically radicalized and violent. I brought it to the NSA’s attention and they put out feelers to other agencies about it.”

“It fits a pattern Interpol has been tracking throughout southern Europe for the last eighteen months,” Prentiss spoke up sounding very much like the agent she’d been when she worked with the Bureau. “The NSA is concerned about an escalation in terrorist events on American soil but more in the vein of the Bataclan or Nice attacks rather than the self-radicalized individuals that we’ve seen so far.”

“And this is sort of your wheelhouse now,” Reid added.

“I guess,” Prentiss shrugged. “It helps that I’m American and already have relationships with all of the relevant agencies involved. It means I can hit the ground running with a minimum of fuss. It probably made the most sense to the Interpol brass.”

“It’s an ideal set-up in a way,” Hotch added. “She’s here to work the task force but we can also use her on the Peter Lewis case.”

“Sounds like you need all the agents you can get on that one what with a dozen serial killers loose roaming the countryside…” Prentiss smirked with her typical glibness but Hotch’s frown deepened as if she were criticizing him personally. The look made her circumspect and she stood away from the desk as if to pay her former boss the respect he deserved. “Anyway, I’m here until the case is closed, or Interpol recalls me…”

“Well…” Reid blew out a breath, shocked down to his core at the turn of events. _Prentiss is back…_ “Welcome home.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly while giving him a blinding smile. She even rocked a little nervously on her feet as if she’d been worried about his reaction. He found this inexplicably charming.

“Reid, why don’t you get Prentiss up to date on the Lewis case.” Hotch’s eyes were flicking back and forth between them, giving them an unreadable look. “We’ll do a task force briefing when the rest of the team gets here.”

“Okay.”

“Sounds good,” Prentiss said, slipping into her professional mask with ease.

Hotch hesitated a moment longer and then breathed out a long sigh that caught both of their attentions. “It’s good to have you back, Prentiss.”

She blinked. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be, sir.”

Reid’s heart slammed so hard against his ribcage that he had to reach out and press his hands along his desk to cover his loss of equilibrium. He hoped that were true because the statement suddenly meant the world to him.


	5. Chapter 5

The team was delighted by Prentiss’s return. It didn’t seem right that they should be so happy while being embroiled in the Peter Lewis escape and a terrorism manhunt, but many of them had long since given up trying to reconcile conflicts like that; you just took your joy where you could find it. Having Prentiss in their midst again was a rallying cry after a long, disheartening fight. J.J. broke out baby pictures. Garcia tried to get her to bunk down at her place for the duration. Rossi offered his guest room and the secret to his grandma’s lasagna recipe (which she gladly accepted). Even Lewis seemed pleased, giving up her desk to its former tenant with a smirk (“Reid’s twitching messes with my concentration anyway”). Hotch indulged it all with the slightest of smiles until he was forced to get them back on task. Reid marveled at how she changed them all – maybe she didn’t even realize what she was giving them. Maybe she thought they carried on like this without her…

He was delighted too of course, but found himself being formal and stiff around her in an effort to hide it. He somehow couldn’t let it be the same as it was before, although the allure of that was strong. And yet, he didn’t know what it should be like _now_. They were clearly still friends – they still liked each other – and they were partners once again, but his brain kept whispering about ‘more’ and the very obvious sense of ‘family’ that she’d brought back with her. He was a sucker for that feeling and he had to remind himself that it wasn’t her fault that he’d gone ahead and built up expectations around it.

By the end of the first week, Garcia could no longer contain her need to celebrate and they all found themselves nestled in a downtown restaurant on a night when Morgan and Savannah could join them as well. Jack, Henry, Michael, and Hank were lauded as the guests of honor, since it was rare that all of the kids were included, but the whole evening swirled around Prentiss as she laughed and told stories and cooed over the babies. After an hour, Reid started to feel brittle around the edges from too much stimulation and quietly excused himself, but instead of heading to the washroom, he took a left and found himself huddled on the abandoned restaurant patio. He sighed, grateful for the unexpected reprieve of leaning under an awning out of the October rain and breathing in the sounds of passing cars. He had no idea how long he’d been gone or if the rest of them were concerned about it.

“Hey.” Her voice suddenly floated above the hum of the traffic from the street. It wasn’t loud, but he tensed anyway.

“Hey.” He turned and saw her at the opposite end of the patio, hands shoved into her pockets looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

“You disappeared…” she said after a moment of silent staring, gesturing over her shoulder to the restaurant.

“Too loud in there. I needed some quiet.”

She nodded and continued staring at him. “You look tired, Spencer.”

“I am,” he sighed turning his gaze back to the passing cars. “Sometimes I get so exhausted now I wonder if I’ve finally reached my limit with this job.”

He listened to her footsteps as she crossed the patio and came to rest beside him. She leaned against the table behind her, her shoulder idly brushing his. She didn’t say anything - just waited for him to continue. He smiled suddenly that she knew him that well.

“I tell myself maybe it’s time for me to give up the danger and horror of it all. Maybe it’s time to go into the private sector, to do pure research, to finally settle down…”

She made a soft snort of disbelief and he turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised and a smile curling one side of his mouth. She really did know him…

“But then I drink a cup of coffee - or ten - and the feeling passes,” he finished and she laughed gleefully knocking into his side as if to say _I knew it_.

“A normal life wouldn’t suit you. It wouldn’t suit either of us.” Her voice was warm. “At least you understand that about yourself. It took me years to figure that out.”

“Is that why you left?” he asked after a moment. Her eyes narrowed when she looked at him. “Did you leave us because the BAU started to feel too sedentary?”

“No,” she said firmly, and then sighed and rolled her shoulders. “Maybe… I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense that I’d leave because you all made me feel comfortable.”

“It does if comfort frightens you.”

“Why would it frighten me?”

“Because comfort can sometimes double as happiness. If you’re happy that means you have stuff to lose, stuff that can be taken from you. And that makes you vulnerable. I know you’re not fond of vulnerability, Emily.”

She stared at him hard for a full minute not giving anything of herself away. Then she sighed again, her spine slouching as she let the tension drain from her. “I forgot how good you are at this.”

He watched her as she stared into the street. He’d just been spitballing with his comfort theory but now it seemed like it might be close to the truth of things. She’d saved her friends from assassination, she’d considered buying a home, setting down roots - and then she’d made a hundred and eighty degree turn and left it all behind her. It definitely felt like she was fleeing from happiness, normality, _domesticity_ … And then he thought about that morning in the hotel bathroom. She’d seemed to yearn for comfort and familiarity then. She’d pursued it with him, trying to make it happen with an ocean of awkwardness and confusion between them. Was it just a passing fancy like her house hunting had been? Had she only craved him temporarily? He thought that being known that way would be something everyone wanted. But what if he was deluded? What if he was more like her than he thought?

“Do you really think that I could never settle down?” he asked quietly, still watching her. She turned back to him and when she did, her cheeks seemed rosier. She took a deep breath before answering, as if it were a very important statement.

“No, I think you could. I think you want to. But you won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because… I think the idea of a stable home life is sort of a fever dream for you. You’ve wanted it ever since you were a kid but you’ve never had it, and I think - deep down - you’re convinced you never will so you won’t try for it. Better to live a solitary life that you’re used to than to try and fail at the thing you want more than anything else.”

He flinched as if she’d hit him. Her stare softened a fraction.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Spencer.”

“I… I think you just called me a coward,” he choked out.

He felt her hand close around his bicep and squeeze. “If you’re a coward then I’m a craven deserter, and I think we both know that we’re more than that.”

“Are we?” he gasped around the stone in his throat. What if this was the most he’d ever become?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you left people who care about you and a job you love, and I’ve used every excuse I can find in order to keep people away from me although I’ve always told myself that I want the opposite. Maybe neither one of us is brave after all. We can face down killers - sure - but we can’t manage to be happy. That’s something that a dog or a baby can do without being shown how.”

“Our lives are considerably more complicated than a dog’s or a baby’s,” she said defensively.

“Maybe.” He ignored her tone and instead took a deep, wet breath in and leaned his head back as if what he said next were to the sky instead of her. “But that morning in the hotel in Chicago, when you kissed me and it all felt so easy and familiar… I wanted nothing more in that moment. I wanted that _feeling_ to be the reality I woke up into every day for the rest of my life. I wanted it like air or food or sleep - it was an impulse I didn’t need to think about first. It was so simple that a baby would recognize it.”

He rolled his head forward and looked at her. Her eyes were wide, dark pools and her mouth had fallen open as if she were about to say something that she’d spontaneously forgotten.

“You’re right: I don’t have any experience with the contentment that comes with stability, but that’s never stopped me from wanting it. And no matter how screwed up my life got, I always believed that one day I’d achieve that contentment somehow. I never thought I was afraid of it.”

“Spencer, I…” she gasped but couldn’t seem to continue.

“If the urge for happiness is fundamental, and I’ve been rejecting it all this time, maybe I’m not only a coward but I’m also broken in some basic way as well. What a terrible deception to inflict on oneself…”

“You’re not broken,” she whispered angrily and then dragged him down into a rough kiss before he could respond.

Her lips tugged at his, pulling urgently as if she’d given over her rebuttal to the kiss instead of words. Her fingers dug into the soft skin under his jaw and along the back of his neck; everything about her felt desperate and immediate. He was unyielding, refusing to fall for this argument when everything about him knew better. But a tense moment passed, followed by another and another, and then his lips gave way softening around hers, pulling her lower lip between his, sucking, roaming, skimming over her like she belonged to him, like the way his body had begged him to take her that night in Chicago… _I want to be known this way…_

“Don’t,” he huffed as his hands gripped her by the shoulders and pushed her away.

“What… why?”

“Because regardless of whether I’m capable of settling or not, you’ve told me that you _aren’t_. And you’ve got a man waiting back in London for you who may not know that. I won’t be the excuse you use to break that to him.”

She backed off, shrugging out of his grip and giving him the sharpest look he’d ever received from her. “You think I’d use you like that?”

“Not on purpose,” he said quietly still tasting her on his lips. “It might just work out that way.”

“Wow,” she barked out with a cruel smile that was all teeth and no amusement. “All this time I thought _you_ were the only one who really got me. But I don’t think you see me clearly at all. If you really believe for one moment that I’d…”

She paused and then waved her hands in front of her as she stood away from the table behind her.

“You know what? Never mind. It’s not your problem.”

“Emily, I didn’t mean to upset-”

“Forget it, Reid.” She turned and headed for the patio doors. “We’ve got cases to close - that’s why I’m here. Let’s just do the work and forget the rest. Then I’m back to London where I belong.”

He didn’t think he’d ever feel worse about leaving something unfinished between them than he did after their messaging conversation, but this moment managed to eclipse it. He was losing her by inches and he seemed helpless to stop himself from accelerating the process. He suddenly, fervently wished that he never knew what it was like to kiss her.

“Emily!” he called out loudly but she ignored him and slipped back into the restaurant and the convenient camouflage it provided.


	6. Chapter 6

The incident on the patio felt like they were breaking apart, but as the weeks of working side by side stretched out, Reid realized that they couldn’t maintain the strain of it. Sometimes their newfound awkwardness was forgotten and they slipped back into the easy partnership they’d honed over the years without thinking about it. Like on the jet when he conned her into playing chess with him and she pouted about losing in a less-than-serious way (honestly, she was a terrible chess player - he wondered if she did it on purpose for some reason). Or in a diner on the road when she ordered a salad and then dumped half of it on his plate next to his burger while she scooped up his fries telling him to eat his vegetables when he whined about it like a child (he grumbled that potatoes _were_ vegetables but she just smiled and said that if they weren’t brightly colored they didn’t count). They worked interrogations and field interviews with a practiced choreography that was at once complex and easy for them, they built profile elements with a silent shorthand, and they even moved together in armed scenarios with greater synchronicity than they had in the past. Prentiss slipped back amongst them - next to him - as if she’d never left and there was a collective sigh of relief at the rediscovery of the missing piece that had never been adequately replaced. Even he couldn’t ignore it.

These moments became oddly refreshing. Reid never thought that the work had grown stale for him, but perhaps the years had made him jaded about it. Suddenly, each new clue was invigorating, and the puzzles became engaging in the way they’d been when Gideon first recruited him. He was at a loss to explain it; the only element that had changed was Prentiss’s reappearance and it didn’t seem logical that his joy in the work was tied so closely to her.

But the tension between them was still there, and because it was _not_ familiar to them, it rose up sharply and without warning making them almost physically step back from one another when it hit. Thankfully, no one else seemed to notice it and there was always so much to do that they could pair off and get away from each other if necessary. Reid had never felt so conflicted in his life: it felt so right that she was back, but it was also tainted.

Nothing illustrated this conflict more clearly than when Prentiss stepped between Reid and an unhinged interview subject who came at him with a knife. It was a routine interview and neither of them had any clue of the hidden, mental drama they’d just walked into. They weren’t wearing vests. Reid had his back turned to the woman, asking questions casually while staring at the mementos on her mantle. Suddenly and inexplicably enraged, she picked up a knife from her dining room table and launched at him. Then, Prentiss was impossibly _there_ and he heard the wet moan as the blade sunk into her shoulder rather than his back. He caught her against him, pulled his .38 and shot, wounding the woman in one unthinking instant. Then it was a flurry of adrenaline, phone calls, EMS and local officers as he and Prentiss were loaded into one ambulance and the would-be murderess into another.

At the hospital, he wouldn’t be separated from her and in the end the ER doctor was too tired to deal with his badge, determination, and unending spew of medical facts. Prentiss growled at him, rolling her eyes and telling him to shut up and let the professionals do their jobs. But when he turned and glared at her saying “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me”, her expression changed, eyes going wide and irritation draining from her, and she gave up like the ER doc had. He held her hand grimly as the doctor and his intern gave her a local anesthetic and began sewing her up.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Reid, stop it,” she muttered eventually.

“Stop what?” he challenged back.

“Stop it with the guilt already. It’s a flesh wound - a pain in the ass flesh wound - but I’ll be fine. I’ve been through much worse and you know it.”

“Emily, you were stabbed…”

“It’s not the first time.”

“But it happened because of me,” he gritted.

“It didn’t happen _because_ of you, Reid. It happened because that woman was bonkers. You were just in the room when it occurred.”

“She hurt you by trying to get at me-”

“Yeah, because she was _bonkers_. My shoulder for your back - it was an easy choice to make and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” She leaned forward glaring at him and then winced.

“Ms. Prentiss,” the doctor sighed. “Please sit still or you’ll end up looking like Frankenstein’s monster.”

“Sorry,” Prentiss mumbled and Reid ducked his eyes away still feeling the guilt that she told him he wasn’t entitled to.

There was a full minute of silence around the bed with the busy rush of the ER buzzing just beyond it.

“Reid,” she tried again, gently. “Spencer?”

He looked up and she was still staring at him seriously, but the lines around her eyes and mouth had softened a little.

“Listen, I get that part of this is beyond your control. You’ve always reacted this way ever since Benjamin Cyrus…”

Was that true? Had he always been overprotective of her?

“But it’s time for you to realize how insulting it is for you to think that I can’t - or _shouldn’t_ \- take a hit for you. It is quite literally part of my job description to have my partner’s back in the field. I’m trained, I’m capable, and you don’t get to second guess the calls I make while under fire. You wouldn’t pull this crap on Morgan if it were him instead of me…”

He felt heat rush to his face as his anger swelled. “I don’t act this way because you’re a woman.”

“Really, Reid? C’mon…” she snorted.

“I act this way because you’re _you_ ,” he enunciated crispy and quietly but it caught her attention as if he’d bellowed it at her. She stared, almost in wonder, and in the corner of his vision Reid saw the doctor’s hands hesitate in the awkward silence that followed.

“I’m sorry if you find it insulting,” he said eventually.

“Would you two like a moment in private?” the doctor murmured. “We could step out-”

“No, doctor,” Prentiss murmured without taking her eyes off Reid. “We’re fine. Please continue.”

Another long minute of silence passed between them.

“For the record,” he said. “I _would_ give Morgan a hard time if this had happened to him.”

Her glare softened and the corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk.

“Have I really always been like this?” It was almost a whisper.

“Yep.” Her smirk bloomed into a smile. “Just like I’ve always been like _this_ in response.”

His hand left hers and rose up to lightly cup her jaw. He didn’t think twice about it but her expression implied that she was shocked by it. His fingertips barely touched her - more of a suggestion then a caress - but his thumb skimmed the swell of her cheek over and over. He pulled in closer to her, careful to avoid moving her and disturbing the doctor’s work. He saw a blush flare up across her face and her pupils dilated, but he rose from his seat and brushed his lips against the center of her forehead instead. It was just a moment and then he sat back down and dropped his hand to hers again. He’d done it all without forethought, simply because he wanted to and it seemed right, but as he watched her mouth part and her blush turn scarlet he realized that these impulses were new no matter how easy they felt.

“You’re an infuriating woman,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said and then laughed once surprising herself.

“It’s not because you’re female,” he reiterated quietly, because it was important that she understand that he didn’t see her as weak.

“Okay,” she nodded, matching his seriousness.

“Right,” the doctor loudly huffed while dropping his forceps to the metal tray beside the bed. He couldn’t have broken the mood any better if he’d set off an explosive, and maybe that was his intention. “You’re done, Ms. Prentiss. I’ll just send in a nurse to dress the wound and give you your discharge papers, and then you and your boyfriend can be on your way.”

The doctor forced a smile at them, snapping off his latex gloves while Reid flapped around like a fish thrown ashore.

“We’re… we’re not… We’re just friends-”

“Sure,” the doctor snorted unsympathetically at him before turning to Prentiss. “Finish the entire run of antibiotics regardless of how you feel. Follow up with your doctor if you have any complications. And think twice about stepping in front of knives, Ms. Prentiss.”

“That’s unlikely, doctor,” Prentiss shot back, not missing a beat. “But thanks for the career advice.”

The doctor and his intern disappeared through the curtain and Reid swore that he heard Prentiss mutter “Jerk” under her breath. He couldn’t be certain because his pulse was suddenly booming in his ears.

“Honestly,” Prentiss turned to give him an affectionate, long-suffering look. “If _you_ can’t convince me to take my personal safety more seriously, what chance has he got?”

They waited for her paperwork and prescription, and then left the ER with a grumbled whoop of freedom from Prentiss. She smirked as she did it but all he could think was “what chance have I got?” with a sense of reluctant finality.


	7. Chapter 7

Four months into Prentiss’s ‘temporary’ placement on the team they finally caught up with Peter Lewis. They’d already reclaimed half a dozen of his escapees but everyone knew that he was the real target. They followed him to Austin, Texas, where weirdness tended to make one blend into the background, and worked the clues. It took only two days to narrow down his location and when they did, everyone universally agreed that it was too easy. It was a set-up. Before they worked up a tactical plan and brought in the LEOs, Hotch pulled them all aside looking ashen and older than Reid could ever recall seeing before.

“I’m stepping back from command on this one,” he said quietly although the statement detonated through all of them. “Scratch has already been inside my head, and he’s leveraged that knowledge once to engineer his escape. I can’t allow him that power again.”

The reasoning was sound and in keeping with Hotch’s leadership, but it felt to Reid as if it were the beginning of the end of something. He’d never known Hotch to back away from anything. And with Morgan gone, and now no Hotch as well, there was an unsteadiness thrumming through the team that made Reid’s skin itch.

“Prentiss will take point.” Hotch’s hand landed on her shoulder as all eyes moved to her. She wore her professional mask well, but Reid could see that the gesture came as a surprise to her. “She’ll have tactical authority. I’ll coordinate with the locals from here. Scratch doesn’t know her… it might be an advantage.” Hotch’s gaze swept over them. “Be careful today - this is almost certainly a set-up intended to lure us in. He wants to play but he likes to break his toys - remember that.”

They tracked Lewis to an abandoned secondary school. Reid saw Prentiss grind her teeth when she realized that the campus was too large to be effectively covered by the agents they had between the team and the Austin field office. But she wasn’t prepared to send in any LEOs to cover the difference being unsure of how they’d handle coming face-to-face with an intellectually cunning psychopath.

“We’re just going to have to be efficient,” she told them all as they checked their weapons. “Don’t rush. Clear each room thoroughly. Stay off the comm. unless it’s necessary.”

Everyone nodded and broke out into groups, nervous energy rippling under them like a second pulse. Before they breached the building, Prentiss looked back at him, her face unreadable.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he gritted through his teeth as he willed himself to gritty all over.

It took forever, and with every cleared room, the anxiety got incrementally more intense. Reid had a gut feeling - not based on anything more certain than his own preference if _he_ were Peter Lewis. He nudged Prentiss and when she looked at him he mouthed the words ‘science labs’. And sure enough that’s where they found him, sitting patiently and smiling like a kid on Christmas morning. Prentiss and Reid slid into the lab with guns drawn, and Prentiss whispered for a few additional agents through the comm. But everyone else was to hang back until they knew what the situation was.

“Where’s Aaron?” Lewis asked with anticipation.

“He couldn’t make it,” Prentiss answered. “You’ll have to make do with us.”

“Oh. That’s disappointing. He’s incredibly messy on the inside… it was marvelous sorting through all of that and setting him free…”

“Is that what you did to him?” Prentiss moved into the room but still at a distance from Lewis. She had partial cover from a lab counter.

Lewis chuckled. “No need to buy time for reinforcements with idle chatter, Agent. I’ll wait for everyone to arrive before I begin.”

“What do we have to look forward to, Peter?” Reid spoke up. Lewis looked at him as if he hadn’t seen him, and then he smiled in delight.

“Dr. Reid! Welcome. If I couldn’t have Aaron, I’m glad that you could make it at least.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’ll be fun to crack you open and see what happens. I’ve never experimented on someone like me before.”

Reid saw two more agents slide into his peripheral vision.

“Dr. Reid isn’t here to be your guinea pig,” Prentiss growled.

Lewis smirked at her almost pityingly, and then raised his hand to casually reveal a pressure switch in his grip. “For the benefit of our new guests. If you shoot me, things will get really exciting in here.”

So, either Lewis had set up one of his hallucinogenic gas devices, or a bomb, or something else outside of his M.O. that they couldn’t anticipate. If he detonated it, the agents on the perimeter might catch him, but it was probably bad news for everyone in the lab. Reid thought about Hotch huddled under an emergency blanket babbling to Rossi about murderous visions. Reid straightened and holstered his .38.

“There are ways around that, Lewis,” Prentiss called out, still unaware that Reid had put away his gun and was slowly walking in Lewis’s direction.

“By all means, Agent, try your luck. This is the evil that men do, correct?” Lewis murmured with a smile before he saw Reid and focused his stare on him instead. “What are you up to, Doctor?”

“Reid!” Prentiss hissed. He stepped into her line of sight, effectively blocking her unless she relocated.

“You don’t see what you do as evil though, do you, Peter?” Reid asked calmly, like he was scientifically curious. 

“Of course not. I just open them up, and remove some of their restrictions. Whatever they do as a result is on them. I’ve never killed anyone. But you know all of that already, Dr. Reid, and trying to draw me into a moral debate about it is beneath you. Good and Evil are subjective intellectual constructs. What I’m doing is pure science: chemistry, neurobiology… I thought you’d understand that.”

Reid heard Prentiss shout his name again but he focused entirely on Lewis.

“I understand science but I don’t understand this, Peter. This feels like using science to mask your own private morality play. I think you’ve fooled yourself into thinking you are above all of that.”

Lewis’s smile slipped and his eyes got hard. “Again, I’m disappointed, Doctor. You and I are the same - I thought you’d understand what I’m striving for here.” He waved the pressure switch in front of Reid as a threat.

“We’re not the same, Peter,” Reid continued quietly. “We’re both unique and that puts us out of reach. No one gets you and you’ve learned to accommodate that - you’ve decided to learn what makes people do the horrible things they do. No one gets me either - they never have. And, in a way, I’ve tried to figure out people as well.”

He stepped closer to Lewis and heard his name called out from behind him again. This time it was edged with desperation. He dropped his hand to his side and then wiggled his fingers to those standing behind him in a gesture of ‘get out now’.

“No one understands us but maybe we have a shot at understanding each other if we try. Tell me what you are trying to achieve, Peter - I really am curious. Maybe I could offer some insight, or maybe you’ll convince me.”

Lewis watched him carefully as Reid took another step closer. They were now just six feet apart.

“You can always kill me afterwards,” Reid continued. “If my intelligence fails to measure up.”

Lewis’s careful assessment melted into a pointed grin. “Come closer, Doctor. Let’s see what you’re made of.”


	8. Chapter 8

No one died that day. No one even got injured thanks to Reid’s ability to talk and his deft sleight of hand. Once he had the pressure switch, the other agents swarmed in and Lewis apparently didn’t have a back up plan. Reid kept waiting for something horrible to happen - a leading taunt, the detonation of an unknown second device, some sort of daring physicality once he was in custody perhaps… But none of that happened. Still, Reid felt something coming - a strange kind of electric buzz along the back of his neck that made him pace nervously. As Scratch was manhandled into the back of a cruiser, Reid was a little taken aback to see him smile as congenially as he had the day he’d been first arrested. It made Reid’s skin crawl; someone like Peter Lewis would be a threat so long as he drew breath. Maybe that was the real reason why Hotch stepped back - maybe he didn’t trust himself _not_ to take a shot at him.

Reid looked around and saw Prentiss by a Haz Mat truck talking on her phone. Her stance was rigid - resolutely in command - and he figured that she was reporting back to Hotch at the PD. She turned and caught him staring, and her eyes narrowed at him. He almost took a step back at the glare. He felt a flash of cold zip down his spine and forced himself to turn away. He wondered what that was about. After all, they’d caught a psychopath, ended a manhunt, and hadn’t lost a single life in the process. It felt like someone should buy him a beer, but instead he just felt alone. He went back to the hotel without speaking to anyone.

The knocking on his hotel room door was loud and insistent. He didn’t really expect any less but he was taken aback when he opened the door and found Prentiss there rather than Hotch, and that she was absolutely livid with him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled, slamming the door as she pushed past him.

“I-I don’t know what you mean…” His guts felt a bit watery; it had been many years since her rage had been focused solely on him.

“Don’t do that,” she rounded on him angrily and pointed. “Don’t play the babe in the woods routine with me. You know _exactly_ what you fucking did today. You promised that you’d never deliberately step into my line of fire again, remember that?”

He backed up a step but he also felt his hackles rise. This wasn’t Owen Savage all over again, and he wasn’t some naïve, wet-behind-the-ears agent either. “Peter Lewis took down Hotch, and Hotch is one of the toughest, smartest people I know. Brutality wasn’t going to do us any favors. The only way to defeat him was to use his mind against him. If you know of a more qualified agent to psychologically go to bat against a guy like Lewis, then you should have brought him up. I’d love to meet him.”

“You arrogant, bloody-”

“Hey,” Reid barked louder than he intended. “It wasn’t arrogance. It wasn’t personal. It was _strategy_.”

“I had a clean shot!”

“And he had a panic switch linked to who-knows-what,” he growled, but kept his voice low and even in direct contrast to her frustration. “You may have been willing to put every agent in the room in danger, but I wasn’t.”

Without warning, she strode forward and slapped him hard across the face. It was powerful enough to make his eye feel like it was rattling around in its socket afterwards; she hadn’t pulled the strike one iota. When he looked back at her, mouth agape and the sting of her hand still on his cheek, her face was mottled and her lips were pinched white with fury.

“How dare you?” she hissed.

“How dare I what?” he asked. “Do my job?”

She slapped him again. It was just as hard and he was just as shocked.

“How dare you imply that I’d put my colleagues at risk? How dare you assume that I think you can’t do your job? How _fucking dare you_ step right into danger like it means nothing - like you mean nothing - after reading me the riot act for doing the exact same thing?!” 

Her voice was rising, getting shrill and out of her control. Suddenly his defensiveness drained out of him and now he just stared at her in shock. She wasn’t angry, she was _terrified._ And he’d done that to her.

“You’re a goddamned hypocrite, Spencer Reid!” Her voice sounded claustrophobic: panicked and desperate to get out of her. “I’m not playing around here. Screw you and your chauvinistic double standards…”

She moved to hit him a third time but his hand flashed up and caught her wrist. She struggled for a moment and then appeared to concentrate all of her energy into swallowing down every emotion she’d let loose since she marched through his door. He held her wrist tightly - because he didn’t really trust that she wouldn’t try to hit him again - and watched the struggle pantomime across her face.

“Please don’t slap me again,” he said quietly when she seemed to have calmed down a little. “I’m sorry.”

Her skin felt warm in his grip and he could distinguish the racing pulse easily. He took a step towards her and waited for her stare to focus on him again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never thought… It didn’t occur to me that you’d be frightened by what I did.”

“Yeah, well…” she hesitated, and then pulled her hand back. Reid let it go without a fight. “You should have.”

“Yes, I should.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Forgive me, Emily. I know that feeling and… I’d never want to put you through that.”

He looked down to his feet; he always did that when he felt guilty. Even though his decision was a tactical success, his stomach twisted knowing exactly how she felt watching him do it.

“Umm, I’m sorry too,” she murmured, and he looked up. She reached out slowly, her hand open and palm up, hesitating noticeably before she brushed his cheek where she’d struck him. “I… I hit you. No matter how angry you made me, there’s no excuse for that.”

Giving in, he leaned slightly until his face rested in her palm. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, telling her with his body that he accepted her apology.

“I’m not condoning anything,” he said carefully. “But maybe I had it coming. Maybe you were right when you said I have a different standard when it comes to you. Maybe I am a hypocrite. And maybe I don’t want to look too closely at the reasons why.”

They were both silent for a moment and Reid tried to limit his thoughts to just the feel of her hand against his cheek. Then he heard her sigh.

“You know, I got pretty angry today when you told Lewis that no one understands you. I’ve always thought that I did, but right now I’m not so sure.”

He opened his eyes to look at her.

“Spencer, I was wrong,” she whispered. “You’re not afraid of being happy. You’re afraid of being happy with me.”

He stared at her in the dark for a long moment letting himself rest in the palm of her hand, then he pushed closer until her features blurred and her hand fell away from his jaw.

“Can you blame me? Who would volunteer to give everything to someone who doesn’t want it?”

Her face creased into lines of sadness. “Who says I don’t want it?” 

Whatever restraint he’d been holding onto all this time instantly snapped. He cupped her face bringing it roughly to his mouth as he simultaneously collapsed them both into the wall next to the door. A second later he pulled away - just far enough to let a breath slip between them - and then he dipped back in to find her soft and eager against him. She opened to him as his lips moved, and he slipped inside easily. A delicate moan from her reverberated through his chest and lit him up from sternum to pelvis. He pushed deeper and she mumbled his name so plaintively that a throb of want shook him like a toy in a dog’s mouth. His hands grabbed her by the waist and yanked her up the wall as he ground against her, kissing her brutally. She yelped a little, but then he felt her legs shift until his body was flush against hers and her thighs hooked around his hips. He was pressing into her mindlessly - hot, damp, and eager - and he had a moment of shame when he thought about their years of friendship and how his lust might undo what was left of it. Then he felt her tighten and shift her hips in time with his stroking, whimpering as if she were trying to fight off her own flash of shame.

“Emily…” he gasped against her throat, hoping if she were going to tell him ‘no’ that she’d do it now while he still had a sliver of control left.

Her tongue circled the half moon of his ear before she reached the lobe and sucked it in all wet and teasing. “Spencer, please…” she whined. “Please, _please_ … don’t talk. Just let me have you…”

 _Christ._ Like he was going to say ‘no’ to that. No one had ever begged for him before.

“Don’t have any protection…” He bit her lips before pushing into her mouth so that it was impossible for either of them to talk. His hand cupped her ass where it bumped into the wall with their less-than-perfect rhythm. The other hand dove into her hair tangling strands around his fingers as if he never intended to let her go. He could probably get off from frottage alone - he was that worked up already - he just hoped it would be enough for her too.

“Don’t worry about it,” she hissed, knocking her head into the wall when he licked and sucked his way down her neck.

“You sure?”

“Yes, dammit! Want you now…”

“Jesus…” he muttered loudly and then dropped her back onto her feet before tugging open her fly and roughly pulling her pants to the floor.

“Step out,” he ordered, and she did. He fumbled with his own fly, batting away her fingers when she tried to help. Then he hooked his hands under her thighs, lifted her again, and pushed into her with a grunt that turned out to be half her and half him. He forced her hard into the wall and set up a deep, strong rhythm that made her gasp against his throat.

“Oh, fuck…” she whimpered as his chest knocked her back into the plaster to a steady beat. 

“Em? You okay?” He could barely catch his breath to say it.

She moaned loudly in response. It seemed like she’d dragged it up from some hidden, dark corner of her, hurting as it came out. His cock throbbed in sympathy with it.

“More…” Her nails dug into his neck. She might have drawn blood. “Harder… deeper… _please, Spence_.”

“Sweetheart,” he whispered into the skin at her throat before he bit down on her pulse point hard enough to bruise. She keened in his grip, stretching her neck while he bit her to be sure of a mark. He lost it after that, stroking faster and knocking them soundly into the wall over and over so that no one passing by the room would have any doubt as to what they were doing.

 _Take her, have her, be hers…_ It was on a loop inside his brain as his hips slammed into her. She was so warm, so soft and unyielding at the same time that it maddened him. All he could hear was their staggered breathing, the rhythm of the dents they were leaving in the drywall, the hiss of fabric straining as they moved, the slip of their bodies meeting enthusiastically, finally…

“You feel fucking amazing,” he poured into her mouth, not worrying how awkwardly the curse sounded in his voice. “So good… never imagined it would feel this good…”

“Tell me you thought about it,” she moaned, pulling him so close that it threw his rhythm off a little. “Tell me…”

“I did,” he gulped.

“How often?”

“All the time.”

“ _How_ often?”

“When I went to bed.” He thrust into her hard and she yelped trying to muffle it in his shirt collar. He felt lightheaded momentarily like he was swooning.

“When I woke up.” He thrust again and she cried out. 

“When I showered.” Thrust. 

“When I shaved and I remembered the way you watched me do it.” Thrust, whine. 

“When I rode the VRE. When I got bored during a briefing. On the jet. In my car. Wandering through my favorite bookstore. Buying groceries. Taking out the recycling. Paying my bills. Ordering office supplies. Doing the dishes.” He stroked her fast and deep with each statement, marveling at her secret language of whimpers and the slow, sure build of tension as she tightened around him.

“Everywhere. All the time. I imagined you so many ways… I thought I was going mad with it. I thought I’d go blind…” He still might, if the motes in the corners of his eyes were any indication. _Keep breathing, Genius…_

Her fingers dug into his jaw and wrenched his mouth to hers where she proceeded to bite down hard enough to split his lip. “Fuck! So close… don’t stop…”

He grunted, tasting his own blood and her lips at the same time. “Want to make you mine, Em...”

“Spencer,” she growled and then tensed so sharply in his arms that the tail end of it turned into a high-pinched plea. “Say it,” she demanded. “Call me that again…”

He placed his ruined lips next to her ear and breathed as he struck home again and she stiffened around him. “Sweetheart…”

She yelled his name and then held on like her life depended on it. She bit his name into his throat, she whimpered it as she raked her nails along the back of his shirt, and she cried it softly as the last spasms left her. He rode her through it all, losing his mind for a little while in the crazy joy of it and the way he steadily crested within her, rising, straining, pressing until he thought he’d burst, and then he did, working himself inside her until he had nothing left to give. They collapsed into each other, his hands and his body the only things keeping them from sliding to the floor.

He breathed into her neck, holding her hard against him, until his brain began feeding him language again rather than confusing emotional impulses. He slowly lowered her feet to the floor but when she could support her own weight, she clutched him closer, not pulling away like he expected. Her gasping was still rough and delicious in his ears when the twin waves of joy and shame slammed into him simultaneously. Joy because it was so much more than he imagined, and shame because he’d been weak and slipped, allowing her to humiliate another man by using him. He suddenly couldn’t bear to hold her while thinking that. It happened and there was no undoing it now, but he felt too much for her to reconcile that she’d ever hurt someone that way. He pulled away as gently as he could, turning his back as he rearranged his clothes and allowed his guilt to sink into him fully. A moment later he felt her hand ghost along his shoulder.

“Spencer,” she whispered and he desperately wanted to fall into the gentleness her voice offered. He shook his head instead, unable to put anything he was feeling into words.

“Spencer, come sit with me for a moment,” she tried again, circling to face him and holding out her hand. He looked at her and she was flushed and serious. He wanted to believe that she’d never use him. “I know what you’re thinking right now…”

“Do you?” he croaked.

“Yes,” she nodded slowly. “Please sit with me. Listen to what I have to say. There are things I have to tell you…”

“That’s ominous sounding…” he muttered but then reached for her hand anyway. 

She laced her fingers through his and he tamped down on the burst of feeling that it produced. She led him to the bed and sat on the edge staring up at him, waiting for him to join her. He perched beside her, their hands still connected, and she used her free hand to smooth the wrinkles from her shirt nervously. It looked a little hilarious considering she was pants-less, but they were both clearly too amped up to appreciate it. 

“You feel guilty,” she started and her voice sounded shaky.

“Is it that obvious?” He tried to smile.

“Yes.”

“Sorry.”

“Spencer.” She squeezed his hand and when he looked at her she seemed vulnerable and wrung out and new to him. It nearly took his breath away. “Is that the only thing you feel? If it is, I’d rather you give it to me straight.”

“No, it’s not the only thing I feel,” he whispered. “But you already have someone and that’s impossible for me to ignore. Whatever I feel for you… the weight of what I’ve just done to a man I’ve never met is crushing.”

Prentiss took a deep breath and her gaze got steely. “Mark asked me to marry him.”

Reid gasped hard and tried to yank his hand away but she held him firmly. Why would she do that to him? To either of them? What had he or Mark ever done to deserve this casual cruelty? He couldn’t believe it of her - this wasn’t the Emily he knew. Someone that cold wouldn’t care what he thought or step in front of a knife for him or kiss him with a soft longing for understanding…

“How could-”

“Hear it all, Spencer,” she said sternly, like she was telling him to eat his vegetables. He couldn’t help but react to that; he sat still and waited for her to continue.

“He asked me before I left to meet up with the BAU on that case in Chicago. It was a surprise to me… I didn’t think we were anywhere close to that yet. I told him that I needed time to think about it.”

Something inside him wilted at her words. This painted their bathroom experience in a completely different and unflattering light. She hadn’t wanted him; she’d just wanted a way out. He suddenly felt nauseated…

“Spencer, don’t!” she snapped at him. “Don’t read things into this until I’m done. At least give me that courtesy.”

He nodded mutely and watched as she took a deep breath in and shuddered when she let it out.

“Remember when I told you that London didn’t feel like home? That it felt like I was just crashing on someone’s sofa for the night?”

“I said that Mark must find that upsetting.”

“You were righter than you knew - not about what Mark felt - I think he was oblivious to all of that… but if he _did_ know, he’d have been disturbed to find out that he was just an extension of how I felt about living in England.”

“You mean… temporary?”

“Yes. No one plans a future around living on a sofa.”

Reid blinked down to where Prentiss was still holding his hand. “You’re talking about him in the past tense.”

“You’re skipping ahead again. Don’t.” There was a hint of warmth in her voice when she scolded him this time. “Maybe I really was trying to run away from the decision… You’ve pointed out that I’m not good with vulnerability and, let’s face it, you’re not wrong.”

He looked up and she gave him a cautious smile.

“But I wasn’t searching for an excuse to make that decision for me, I swear. What happened between us in Chicago… I can’t really explain it… but it wasn’t planned or forced. It was completely genuine and surprising. I _know_ you felt that too, Spence. I know you did.”

“Yes,” he swallowed hard at the memory. “But you can’t separate out certain actions to live inside a vacuum as if they have no repercussions on other things…”

“I know, but if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of consequences then sink your teeth into this one: three days in Chicago with you felt more personal, more intimate, more like coming home than three years in London and all of the time spent with Mark.”

Her words messed up all of the inner workings of his chest, and he spent a lot of time just blinking and trying to remember how to breathe.

“I knew I couldn’t marry Mark then. I flew back and broke it off with him a week later. I mean, Jesus… he didn’t even notice how commitment-phobic I am. He didn’t understand it at all. Most people can see that from space.”

“To be fair to the man, most people who know that about you are profilers…”

“Are you saying that I didn’t give him a chance?”

“I’m saying nothing of the kind. You know whether you were fair to him or not.”

So, in the end Reid _hadn’t_ just cuckolded some unsuspecting Brit. That was something he supposed. However, he _had_ tacitly played a part in dumping an unsuspecting Brit…

“Well, the thing of it was… regardless of whether I was fair or not, I couldn’t find it in me to regret my decision, and that seemed the most telling to me. And, from the moment I left the U.S., I was breathless with the idea of you…”

Reid’s whole body straightened to attention as he took in Prentiss’s soft, nervous gaze. _What?!??_

“I… I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she admitted quietly. “The way we were… how it was so easy, how we just sort of… snapped together without much effort. And, you know me. We’ve always just kinda ‘gotten’ one another, from the day I showed up in the bullpen. You have to admit to that.”

“Well, s-sure, but… for seven years…”

“It’s wasn’t romantic, let alone sexual,” she finished his thought for him. “You think that can’t change? That we’re always meant to be what we have been in the past?”

“I think to go from friendship to full-blown romantic obsession based on a bizarre sleepy flirtation in a hotel bathroom one morning is a pretty unbelievable leap.”

Her eyebrows lowered as she frowned at him. “Are you saying that you didn’t do the exact same thing?”

“I-I’m saying that it’s unbelievable for me, though I’m naïve enough to convince myself of it. You, on the other hand - it’s downright inconceivable.”

“Inconceivable?!?”

“Em, I can buy that you’d want to go to bed with me - to give it a try…” His throat felt like parched earth and he had to swallow a few times before continuing. “But _being_ with me? You yourself told me that ‘normal’ doesn’t suit you, that you’d never settle down. And whether I can settle down or not - having a home, a family of my own choosing - I _want_ that. Mark may not have been right for you, but I think you’re kidding yourself if you think I’m any better.”

“Are… are you gonna hold me hostage to every stupid thing I’ve said over the years, Spence?” Her expression collapsed and her voice broke. It happened so quickly and violently that he found himself wrapping her up in his arms before he could think about it. “Don’t you think people can change?”

“I hope people can change, Em,” he sighed into her hair as he rocked her. “I really do. But I’m not sure this is something you really want. You didn’t want Mark and the consistency of a life with him, but then you latched onto me almost immediately and say that you want all of the things you’d just rejected. How is a rational guy supposed to take that? And if I let myself fall for you, build a life around the concept of ‘us’ - and then you decide six months down the road that it’s not right for you… I don’t think I could survive that. I think you’re at a crossroads in your life, Em, and you’re scared. You want assurance, you want safety, but you might only want it until your fear passes. I’d want to give you those things for a lifetime.”

She struggled in his arms until he let her move and she looked up at him with tears lining her cheeks. God, she could even cry pretty… When she spoke her voice was quiet and even.

“Spence, you know I love you, right? You once told me that you didn’t want any misunderstandings on that score, and I don’t want any either. We’ve been friends forever and I love you more than I can say. I think I love you much more than a friend should, but I don’t know how to prove that to you. Tell me how to prove it.”

“Sweetheart,” he murmured an instant before he pulled her to his lips. He could taste her tears and it suddenly felt like sorrow was all he’d ever taste again. “I don’t think you can. If I ask for proof, I’ll probably always be asking for you to prove it, and that’s not fair. I think this is something you’ve just gotta _know_ \- like a dog or a baby would.”

He gave her a sad smile and, against all odds, she returned it even as she sniffled and wiped at her cheeks.

“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, this blows,” she muttered into his chest. “I’m going to wipe my nose on your shirt. You deserve it.”

“Okay,” he chuckled and held her close. Then a panic washed over him, all cold and damp, because it was probably already too late for him to recover from this and part of him knew it. “I’m sorry, Em.”

“You should be sorry,” she said softly. “Because I think you’re wrong - perhaps for the first time in your life. Maybe that’s why you can’t see it.”

They held each other in silence for a while, both thinking and not sharing. Then she spoke again.

“And as an FYI, having an emotionally wrenching relationship conversation after sex where one person declares themselves and the other person rejects them rates pretty highly on the vulnerability scale. A more optimistic observer might even qualify such a scene as ‘proof’ from the declaree… if one were looking for evidence like that.”

He squeezed her tightly and closed his eyes. Yep, it was already too late for him: he loved her. If only he could know it was inevitable for her too…

“Just saying’,” she continued wetly. “For a woman who isn’t comfortable being vulnerable, this is could be a big, blinking sign.”

It could be. It could be…


	9. Chapter 9

They flew home and went straight back to work. He had a hard time looking at her now and he wondered if the others noticed it. He wanted to keep his distance but after a week or so he found that they just slid back together as they always had before, like a needle in a groove. It took more energy than he had to fight a decade of friendship.

Four weeks after Peter Lewis’s arrest, she showed up at his apartment unannounced.

“Hey,” she said sheepishly from his stoop. “I know it’s late and that I should’ve called first, but I had a flash of brilliance about the terrorism case and I guess I wanted to run it by you to see if it is _actually_ brilliant or, like, a brain aneurysm or something. Can I come in?”

He stood blankly for a moment and then opened the door wide to let her through. They hadn’t made much progress on the terrorism task force initiative, and he legitimately wondered if she was really there for that. Ten minutes later she was rambling on about search algorithms and Garcia’s Dark Net savvy and a national surveillance deep dive that would probably turn Edward Snowden’s hair white while he passed her a freshly brewed mug of coffee. _I guess this is about the case after all…_

Soon she caught him up in her enthusiastic brainstorming and he was sketching out possible equations on scraps of paper that he and Garcia would have to figure out how to code later. She told him about a few of her Interpol investigations that had led her to her idea, and he listened like it was a campfire story - all heroes and villains and ridiculous daring-do. Her life was far more exciting than it ought to be. No wonder why settling down repelled her so much. He must’ve seemed the epitome of boring to her; he’d been living in the same apartment for twelve years, for chrissakes… 

“Sorry,” she said with a faint blush. “I’ve been going on and on about old cases. Like you don’t get enough of that already. Sometimes I just can’t turn it off, I guess.”

“No, it’s fine. They’re new to me, so…” he fumbled. “And I spend most of my time thinking about work too.” _And the rest of it thinking about you._

She smiled in gratitude and it warmed him, even though he told himself to ignore it. He just wanted to feel friendship towards her and forget the rest. He wanted to have this: the two of them sitting on his couch drinking too much coffee and geeking out over work. He wanted that to be enough for him, because there was no way he could become more interesting to her in spite of everything she’d said about that. But his body wouldn’t let the memories of her be quiet within him; he could still taste her lips in Chicago, feel her in his arms in Austin, ache at the idea that she missed him in London… It just wasn’t fair.

She leaned forward and he held his breath as he watched her, and then her face scrunched up as she looked at the drawing in his hands.

“I don’t know how that makes any sense to you,” she chuckled.

He felt a blush rise to his cheeks. “Well, it’s uh… just a plan, really. That’s how these things start out - as doodles. And then you figure out the math that could make it happen, and then you need to translate the math into a program. That’s where Garcia comes in.”

“Huh.” She looked at the drawing again and then shook her head. “Your brain is absolutely frightening.”

“You have no idea,” he mumbled.

“I have some idea,” she said and he looked up curiously. “Listen… I apologized for some things in Austin, but… I never really said I was sorry for how I treated you that day at the school.”

Tension edged back into him. They hadn’t discussed it since _that night_ and he wasn’t sure that it was wise to do so now. “You explained how you felt and I apologized for it.”

“Yeah, but I was pretty far out of line in that situation and I managed to escape any criticism about it. I can’t let that stand. I asked you to never doubt me when I take risks in the field, and then I turned around and doubted your ability to do your job. _That_ requires an apology. I was scared - sure - but a part of me was also ticked off that you ignored my direction in a tactical scenario. My ego got involved, but you made the right call - a hard one - and I should’ve recognized that you knew what you were doing with Lewis even if I didn’t understand what it was.”

She sighed and sagged into the couch. “I didn’t back your play, Spencer, and I’m truly sorry. You’ve earned more respect than that.”

He was quietly floored. The drawing in his hand started to vibrate so he set it down on the coffee table to avoid dealing with it. “Apology accepted.”

“Thank you,” she said just as quietly. “I don’t want you to think…”

He waited but she seemed stuck. “You don’t want me to think what?”

“I don’t want you to think… that I’ll ever take you for granted. Maybe you assumed that I was sorry, but _I_ have to say the words and prove it to you.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that they were still talking about Austin anymore. He nodded his head, unable to find anything meaningful to say to that, and after a minute he awkwardly asked her about a detail of one of her old cases. They settled back into shoptalk for an hour or so, and then Reid woke just before dawn with a crick in his neck and Prentiss’s head on his shoulder from where they’d crashed out on the couch. He watched her sleep in the thin, dawn light, a puddle of drool darkening his shirt seam under her cheek, and the warmth he’d felt the night before ignited into a blaze. He was really screwed now, and unabashedly in love; he wouldn’t be able to view her purely as a friend ever again.

_Dammit._

She slept for another hour, strands of her hair fluttering with each breath, and he indulged himself in watching every minute of it. When she shifted, he quickly closed his eyes and feigned sleep until he felt her wake, rise from the couch, and quietly let herself out of his place. With the click of his apartment door, he flicked his eyes open again and imagined for a split second that instead of an empty seat he saw her sleepy stare looking back at him with the drool mark under her cheek.


	10. Chapter 10

When he got to the sixth floor it was still dark. He liked the bullpen when it was like this and it was an open secret that he was often in hours before anyone else just so he could soak up the silence and forced concentration of the abandoned floor. Since he also often stayed late as well, some junior agents had fallen for Rossi’s fiction that Reid was a foundling raised by the Bureau. Perhaps they imagined that he actually lived in the building, haunting the hallways at night like a really skinny, twitchy version of the Phantom of the Opera. Reid found this absurdly amusing. But no matter how early he got in, Hotch always beat him. Reid was used to seeing light streaming from his boss’s office and when he looked up to check in with him, he found that he wasn’t alone. Prentiss was there as well, frowning and bent in a serious conversation across from Hotch. Reid froze and just watched them. They weren’t arguing or animated, but their mutual scowling suggested that what they were discussing didn’t make either of them happy. After a few minutes Prentiss nodded and rose from her seat. Hotch did the same and then they both leaned across the desk and shook hands wistfully. Reid felt a cold shiver ripple through him; this couldn’t be good news.

Prentiss left the office and made it halfway into the darkened bullpen before she saw him and startled.

“Jesus, Reid!” She patted her chest in relief. “Good morning to you too, Tweed Ninja.”

“What’s going on?” he asked quietly.

She sighed and then walked to his desk and balanced her hip against its edge. “Interpol has recalled me.”

Reid blinked and tried to cover another cold shiver that had suddenly turned to ice shards in his veins. _It’s over._ “Why? We haven’t come close to closing the terrorism file yet…”

“Well, that’s the thing see… it’s been four months and we don’t even have a viable list of potential targets or suspects.”

“All the more reason for you to stay,” he countered. She smiled at him sadly. It was almost the same expression she’d given to Hotch before she left his office.

“This was always a temporary assignment.”

“But we’re not done yet.” He thumped his bag down on his desk soundly, his voice coming out too sharp and giving himself away a little. _It can’t be over. I haven’t figured out how to do without you again…_

“Sometimes it takes years to build these international terrorism cases. I don’t think Interpol fully appreciated that when they sent me here. I guess they thought a task force would get quicker results. My second-in-command in London is doing a great job but they want me back at the helm. To them running a section department takes precedence over a single case.”

She paused and scuffed her toe against the carpet before continuing. “I could put up a fight about it - Hotch said that he’d back me, tell them that I was integral to the investigation if I wanted that. But that would probably mean abdicating the Section Chief position.”

Reid looked away as his heart calcified in his chest. He fiddled with things on his desk in hopes that it would make him appear disinterested. “I get it: this is just one case and you have to balance that against a career.”

“Sort of, yeah.” She took a deep, wet sounding breath next to him but he couldn’t make himself look at her. “But we closed the Peter Lewis case. That’s a pretty big win - you’ve gotta feel good about that.”

He finally turned back and witnessed her trying so hard for optimism that it almost hurt to see it. She was smiling at him but it didn’t reach her eyes with their guarded, worried focus. He forced a soft smile back at her in return. After all, she’d already made up her mind to leave; there was no sense in making her feel bad about it. Her job was the most important thing to her, always had been…

“Sure, it’s a win. Gets Hotch out of the Director’s dog house too. He won’t forget that you helped with that,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “So, when do you head out?”

She blew out a big breath as her whole body seemed to sag a bit. “My flight’s in three hours.”

“Three hours?!” His hands gripped the back of his chair until one of his knuckles popped. _It’s too soon… too soon… I just need… I can’t adjust that quickly…_ “There won’t be time for you to say goodbye.”

“I know,” she whispered and then brushed something away from her face. “That was Interpol’s call, not mine. I just have enough time to pack up at Rossi’s place and tell him that I wish I could’ve been his Kato Kalen forever.”

She tried to laugh and he gave her a break and smirked at her. “I don’t think he’ll appreciate the O.J. reference.”

“Sure he will,” she chuckled softly, perhaps in gratitude for his kindness in all of this. “Dated pop culture references are sorta his thing.”

The laughter faded and they found themselves staring at each other until the silence got pointed with all of the things that they’d run out of time to say to one another.

“At least I get to say goodbye to you.”

She stepped up and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tightly and laying her head on his shoulder. “I’ll miss you,” she murmured against his collar. 

He dropped his head down into her hair to hide the way her words had cut him open. He grimaced and pulled her close, feeling the warmth against him one last time and trying to memorize her smell.

“I’ll miss you too,” he croaked once he could manage it safely.

“Come visit me in London?” she mumbled into his chest.

“I’ll try.” It was code for ‘I don’t think I can handle it’, and he hoped that she understood that. She had to know that _anything_ that could happen now was nullified by the ocean that separated them.

She held him for a minute, rubbing slow circles into his back, and didn’t challenge him about the future. Then she pushed away with a huff, flicking her hair and straightening her shoulders like she was slipping back into her armor. _She gets it. She knows it’s done._

“Gotta go. Don’t have a lot of time.”

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered, feeling suddenly shivery now that her warmth was gone. _Better get used to that, Genius…_ “Have a good flight.”

She lifted a shoulder and then dropped it like she was ambivalent about whatever her flight conditions were, and then she dipped forward again to smooth out the wrinkles she’d made on his shirt. Her palms swept over him and he felt an unstoppable wave of sorrow crest inside him - intimacy was something he craved on a fundamental level, but in that moment he realized that she was the only person who’d ever really coaxed it out of him effectively. It was one thing to want it, but it was another thing to actually do it, and he was about to watch the woman he wanted to share it with walk away.

She stepped back and appraised her work, and then shook her head with a rueful grin. “I think I made it worse.”

“S’okay, I’m always a mess,” he mumbled around the failures in his mouth, his heart, his mind… “It’s nice that you tried.”

He meant it. Even though he was convinced that her affection for him was temporary, he silently thanked her for it - that she’d tried to persuade him it was something more. No one else had ever bothered to do that but her. When she looked at him, he tried to tell himself that it seemed as though she understood that. She tightened her mouth and gave him a nod, then turned and headed to the elevators without another word. He watched her go because he wasn’t strong enough to turn away. She reached the elevator bank and punched the call button, and then she swiveled to look at him as if she’d known his eyes were following her the whole way.

“Come visit me, Spencer,” she called out clearly, eyes serious. Then the elevator dinged and swallowed her up leaving him devastated and alone in the silence that he’d craved only moments before.


	11. Chapter 11

His message icon dinged on his laptop but he was so lost in an article about psychopathy and evolutionary responses to stressors that he didn’t click on the window until almost fifteen minutes later. When he did, he felt the rush of adrenaline tickle the back of his neck and thought that the article’s authors were probably onto something.

\- Are you around? -

* Yes. Sorry. Was reading something interesting. How are you? *

He stared at the screen for a while and then thought with a sinking feeling that maybe she’d logged off when he hadn’t responded immediately. He reopened the article PDF and tried to pick up where he’d left off but found his concentration was shot. Thankfully the message app chimed again.

\- Things are a little weird right now. Could really use a friend. -

* What’s weird? Tell me. *

She’d been back in London for two months. They’d chatted a few times - more frequently than in the past - but it was always casual. There were moments when his morbid depression shouted loudly that she was starting to let go of their intimacy. He knew it would happen, but it hurt like hell and there was nothing he could do to mitigate that.

\- I can’t. -

He blinked at the screen and waited for more. When nothing came, he decided _to hell with casual._

* Can’t, or Won’t? *

He waited.

* Em, there’s a lot that I can do from here. Just tell what’s going on. *

He paused for another minute. He was getting nervous now. What if something bad had happened? Like, Ian Doyle-kinda bad?

* Are you in trouble? Are you safe right now? *

* Please answer me, Emily. *

Another painful minute passed, and he was about to dial her home number when she responded.

\- I’m in a bit of trouble, but I’m not in any danger. Can you come to London? -

* I’m testifying in 3 cases over the next 10 days. Hotch is undergoing an OPR review for the Peter Lewis thing and we’re still struggling without you and Morgan. It’s probably not possible. *

He knew that this’d upset her but there was a small, peevish part of him that felt satisfied that she’d realize how shitty it felt to fall in second place to a job. She’d chosen London over _everything_ else and he felt it was a bit ballsy of her to ask him to put his life on hold for her at a moment’s notice. Unless she was lying about how much trouble she was in… Since when had Prentiss been unable to get out of a jam, he thought with a sudden icy dread.

* Seriously, Em, what kind of trouble are you in? *

\- Come to London. Please. -

He growled at the screen. Why was she being so secretive? What did she really expect of him if he came to see her?

* Tell me why. *

\- I told you I can’t -

* Then don’t expect me to drop everything for you. *

His hands shook as he typed it. She was being unreasonable and he resented it, but he was also afraid of losing her. He didn’t know how to stand up for himself as well as be the friend that he wanted to be.

* Emily, I’m trying to be the best man I can be in this situation. *

He decided to stop beating around the bush and lay it all out for her instead hoping that it would encourage her to do the same.

* I love you and now I’m worried about you. But I have to protect myself. You’ve made clear choices: your job and your personal independence. I don’t begrudge you that, but those choices exclude me. Please don’t run some sort of game on me so that you can get what you want at the cost of my heart. *

\- Screw you, Spencer. That’s the second time you’ve assumed that I’m using you for shabby and callous reasons. I’ve never done anything to you that merits that sort of judgment. -

He stared at the screen gape-mouthed in shock.

* I’m sorry for assuming. *

\- It’s a shitty thing to do. As a friend, or as anything else. You made your position about this pretty clear while I was stateside and I’m not an idiot. I wouldn’t have asked to see you if it wasn’t important. -

* Then tell me what’s going on. *

\- COME TO LONDON. IT’S IMPORTANT. -

The app beeped that Prentiss had logged off. He just continued staring at the screen. The anger subsided and now he was just quietly terrified. She’d thrown down a challenge, backed him into a corner with it, and left it up to him how the whole thing worked out. He felt that his options were to either do what she asked or lose her. He didn’t want to do either, but as he opened a browser window to check out flights costs and schedules he decided it was better to sacrifice your ego than a friend.


	12. Chapter 12

**Date:** March 3, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Visit

Hey Em,  
I’ve attached my flight details. The 24th is the soonest I can manage with the way things are at work, I’m sorry.

I’m also sorry for what I said during our last chat. Upon reflection, I did make some unfair assumptions about you and the reasons why may be as embarrassing as simply not believing that you could ever really want me. Maybe you were right from the start: maybe I’m afraid to be happy and, yes, afraid to be happy with you. I don’t know where we go from here but I hope that whatever happens we’ll always be a part of one another’s lives.

I’ve tried to message you a few times but you haven’t responded. Please let me know that you’re okay. Since I’m coming to see you, I guess you could wait and tell me to go screw myself in person, but I’d sleep a lot better if you’d let me know that you’ve received this. There’s nothing stopping you from doing both really…

Be well,  
\- Spencer

 

 **Date:** March 5, 2017  
 **### Autoreply: message has been received by recipient ###**

 

 **Date:** March 11, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Update?

Hi Emily,  
I haven’t heard from you in a while. Just want to make sure everything’s all right on your end. You know me - I worry at a semi pro level. Could you drop me a line when you have a chance? By the way, Hotch was cleared by OPR but I think he’s considering retirement anyway. There’s only so many times you can have sand kicked in your face before you pack up your things and go looking for a nicer beach. Don’t know what we’ll do if he leaves…

\- Spencer

 

 **Date:** March 19, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** OK, I get it. You’re angry.

I’ve really offended you. Obviously. I didn’t mean to. I was just doing what I always do - pushing away people so that I don’t get hurt. I know you’re a good person and, you’re right - you’ve never done anything to deserve having your motives questioned the way that I did. I was just scared, Em. I’ve never been anyone’s first choice. I’ve never been anyone that someone longed for. I guess it’s just hard for me to believe that anyone would see me that way after a lifetime of not being seen at all. You’re my best friend, Emily, and I love you for that. I’ve always been in awe of you - you’re just a beautiful, brainy, fearsomely spectacular package - and that’s pretty intimidating. For a long time I thought we became friends by accident and you were just too polite to set me straight about it. Tell me that I haven’t irredeemably screwed this up.

Are you reading these? Will you even be there when I land in 5 days?

I hope so.  
\- Spencer

 

 **Date:** March 20, 2017  
 **To:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** No subject

I asked you to come to London - of course I’ll be there when you arrive. We have a lot to talk about.

And because I’m less capable of dealing with bullshit than normal, I’m gonna warn you up front that I’m _done_ with listening to your crippling and completely erroneous feelings of inadequacy. Stop falling back into clichés, Spencer. I don’t give a damn about who you aren’t, and I hope that we can finally have an honest conversation about who we are _now._

See you on the 24th.

\- Emily

 

 **Date:** March 20, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: No subject

That last email makes me wonder if I should be wearing a cup and flack jacket when I arrive at Heathrow…

 

 **Date:** March 23, 2017  
 **To:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: re: No subject

Well, there’s no such thing as being too careful.


	13. Chapter 13

The crush of people at the arrivals gate was daunting for a Friday afternoon. He craned his neck and stretched to the length of his considerable height to find her face in the gaggle of happy, weepy, eager crowd trying to get to their families/lovers/friends/co-workers straggling out from customs and baggage claim. He walked slowly, letting others clear a path before him, but he couldn’t see her. He didn’t understand - she said she’d be there. He had her address… he could always grab a cab into the city, but… He felt as if he were walking into his own firing squad. Shaking his head he told himself to quit assuming; that’s what got him into this mess in the first place.

“Dr. Reid?”

He looked to his left to see a tall man waiting patiently in an immaculate suit. He was more than a little like Hotch, if Hotch had been both inexplicably British and Mormon-looking.

“Yes?”

“Good afternoon. My name is Jenkins. Chief Prentiss sent me to collect you.” He didn’t offer his hand but did take one of Reid’s bags before he could object.

“Is Prentiss okay?” He couldn’t help it. This was already way too cloak and dagger for his liking and she said that she’d be there.

“Perfectly, sir. She was unexpectedly detained this afternoon. She sends her apologies. I’m to take you to her flat.” Jenkins calmly headed towards the exit leaving Reid no choice but to follow him.

“Take me to _her_ ,” Reid growled in his most authoritative tone, and Jenkins turned just enough to size him up and nod.

“Of course, sir. It’ll take about an hour. Traffic is quite bad at this time of day.”

“Alright,” he muttered as he was shut into the backseat of a luxury sedan waiting in the priority pick-up lane outside the terminal.

Jenkins was silent as they sped into London. After thirty minutes or so, Reid lost his ability to control both his curiosity and his anxiety.

“Do you work with Chief Prentiss?”

“Yes, sir.” He refused to elaborate. He was increasingly reminding Reid of Hotch.

“Is chauffeur duty part of your job?”

Jenkins cracked the vaguest of smiles. “Not even slightly. I’m doing the Chief a favor.”

Reid sat back and glared at the passing traffic. “I’m not that helpless,” he mumbled. “I could find my way to her apartment.”

“Of course you could, sir. She’s told me all about you: you’re immanently capable. She just thought that you’d be tired and stressed from traveling, that’s all.”

“Hmmm,” Reid mused. “So what is your job then?”

Jenkins’ eyes flicked to Reid in the rearview mirror briefly. “I was MI5, but I became disenchanted with how our hands were tied when it came to managing domestic terror threats. That’s when I met the Chief and she recruited me. She said we could learn a lot from the other’s skill sets and she was correct. She gave me a lot of new tools to work with.”

Reid smiled - that sounded like Emily.

“Now I’m a section chief,” Jenkins concluded. Reid blinked. He thought that there was only one section chief per Interpol office. How could both Emily and Jenkins have the same job? Jenkins’ eyes flicked to Reid again and read him easily. “She’ll explain everything, Doctor.”

Things were getting weird, but Reid didn’t have much time to think about it as the sedan dipped into an underground parking garage in the heart of the city. The garage itself was unusual in that it had two security checkpoints before the vehicle even got into the guts of the structure. Jenkins circled the car to the far end of the building where parked cars had thin layers of dust or expensive car covers over them. Long term parking for the elite and security-conscious apparently. Jenkins parked in front of an elevator with a keypad and infrared sensor, then he killed the engine and retrieved Reid’s bags from the trunk.

“Where are we?” Reid asked as Jenkins fished out a keycard, swiped it, and then entered a code into the elevator keypad. The doors slid open almost immediately.

“The Chief’s flat.” He loaded Reid’s bags into the elevator.

“I told you to take me to her.”

“You did.” Jenkins gently nudged him into the elevator and swiped the keycard again against the reader inside the cab. “The lift will take you directly to her flat. Enjoy your time in London, Dr. Reid.”

He smiled as if he meant it and then the doors closed on Reid and his irritation. That guy was _worse_ than Hotch. The elevator whooshed upwards fast and high enough to make his ears pop, and then the doors opened with a soft ding to a spacious living room with lots of grey, London skyline and expensive cherry wood floors. He collected his bags and stepped out into a space that would’ve been ludicrously large in any major city, and he belatedly wondered if the place was an Interpol perk or a result of the Prentiss family money that Emily never talked about. He dropped his bags and looked around. There was a soft buzz of music coming from somewhere - it sounded old and warm and mournful - probably some Delta blues that Emily was secretly fond of. It calmed him a little because at least _that_ was familiar and something that he knew about her. The rest of this place, her job, Jenkins… it all seemed discordant and bewildering to him, and he didn’t really want to consider how much he _didn’t_ know about her.

“Emily?” he called out hesitantly and then walked through the space when he received no answer. Eventually, he heard her voice and followed it to an impressive kitchen set-up. Her back was to him as he stood in the doorway, the earpiece to her cellphone perched in her ear as she gesticulated to the stove in front of her.

“Yes, sir, I understand the urgency… Yes, I agree but as I’ve already stated, this is a complicated scenario. I need assurances - either I do this on my terms or I’ll have to decline the offer.”

He watched her prepare a cup of tea while she talked, and wondered when she became a tea-drinker. As she moved, he heard a gurgle and saw that her coffeemaker on the counter was brewing too. He smiled as his ever-present caffeine addiction reared its head with interest.

She stood and listened in silence for a full minute to whatever the caller was saying. He took the time to drink her in on the sly. She looked wonderfully casual, lacking the full-on Prentiss mask that she usually wore in her professional life. He was once again charmed by the fact that she let him see this side of her without hesitation. There was something about her today though… maybe the light was different. She seemed confident and complete in a way that had been missing when she was stateside. His heart sank a little at the thought that _this is her in her element_ despite what she’d told him about her feelings for London. This was whom she’d chosen to be, he thought. She was never coming home again. Maybe the way she ‘missed’ him was starting to wear off. Maybe this trip was about saying a proper goodbye to one another. Belatedly, he wondered why she wasn’t at her office on a Friday afternoon.

“Okay,” she continued into the phone, as she turned sideways and leaned against the counter. Her sweater fell open and he took in her profile. His eyes moved down her body carefully. Had she gained weight? She was home during a weekday and she was dressed just for herself… he wondered if she were sick. But she looked fantastic, not ill at all - that couldn’t be it. His eyes wandered back up and then became riveted. _Not a trick of the light…_ his mind whispered, as she turned to face him. Her eyes went wide when she saw him and then she quickly held up a finger as if to say ‘Gimme a minute’.

“That’s reasonable. Thank you for the consideration, sir,” she continued while she openly stared at Reid. It was intense enough to make his face heat a little. “I have a few things to sort out on my end but I’ll get back to you with my decision by Monday your time. Yes… okay… thank you for the call, sir. Speak to you soon.”

She thumbed off her phone and removed her earbud while continuing to stare. “Hey,” she said eventually.

“Hey.” He attempted to look her in the eye but his gaze kept flicking down her body. Adrenaline was sending strange shocks up and down his limbs and he was reflexively swallowing while his mind whispered crazy thoughts as he tried to come up with a tactful way to say what he needed to. He heard her take a deep breath in and that brought his eyes back to hers again.

“I don’t know if this is better than meeting you at the airport or not,” she said quietly, sadness crinkling her forehead. A hand drifted down to her belly and rested on it. “Spencer Reid, meet Trouble. Trouble, meet Spencer Reid: your Dad.”


	14. Chapter 14

He experienced a little blankness after their introductions, and when he came back to himself, he was seated at an island counter in her kitchen with an untouched cup of coffee steaming before him. He shook his head a little and then found her staring at him as if she’d expected that reaction. She held her teacup close to her chest, taking little thoughtful sips now and then as she considered him.

“Sorry,” he huffed and reached for the coffee to have something to do. “I spaced out there.”

“That’s understandable,” she said quietly. “Imagine how I reacted when I found out.”

“W-when did you… I mean… how long…”

“I’m at eighteen weeks.” She was indulging him because it was a stupid question. They both knew when it happened - he could do the math on his own.

“You must’ve been… really freaked out when you found out.” He felt unbelievably guilty about their last online chat now. She must’ve felt scared, anxious, isolated… and he’d acted as if she were trying to take advantage of him.

“The freak-out is sorta ongoing.” She gave him a smile that he felt wholly unworthy of. “Part of that are the hormones. I’m having a capable day today, and I guess I’m getting accustomed to the idea too.”

His mind suddenly exploded with questions. Urgent, sharp, demanding ideas battered at him from every direction - he didn’t know where to begin. He pushed his coffee away and sunk his head into his hands.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive right now… but, do you have any alcohol? I think I need a real drink.”

She made a weird noise, as if he’d shocked her, but then she began rummaging around the kitchen. He felt terrible - he was failing miserably in this moment and he knew that his reaction was hurting her. But he just couldn’t get his heart rate under control or fight the bile in the back of his throat. He needed something to numb his panic and self-doubt - just a little something to take the edge away so that he could get to the heart of this and man up.

“Oh wow,” she mumbled after some banging around. “I actually have a bottle of brandy…”

“Excellent,” he muttered as she slid the bottle and a glass in front of him. He gulped down two half glasses one after another without finesse and then gave her a sheepish look. “This’ll help. I just need to quiet down my brain a little.”

“Sure, I get it,” she said carefully. “You can see why I didn’t want to do this online, right?”

Jesus, this would’ve been a cripplingly painful experience via text messages. She was right: he needed to be here - to see her, smell her, feel the nuances of every silent moment, to express things that words couldn’t.

“Yeah, but you could’ve told me something that would’ve made me worry less, Em. It’s been three weeks of imagining everything from another Doyle scenario to you dying of some incurable disease. I was sorta losing my mind about it.”

She looked a little guilty then. “Sorry. Yeah, that was… shit. I’m sorry for that.”

He waved it off, feeling the first delicate veins of booze snaking through his system. _Thank god…_ “It’s done, and I’m immensely relieved that you aren’t dying or the subject of some psychopathic vendetta.”

“Me too,” she chuckled unexpectedly and he smiled in return. She worried the tile grout on her counter with her finger. He noted that the nail was bitten to the quick. Something straightened in him at the sight of it, something grumbled _Not because of me - she’s got enough on her plate - tell her you’re in it with her…_.

“Listen,” she huffed, slouching into the counter as if her strings had been cut. “It wasn’t my intention to sandbag you with this. We were just together once, and you warned me at the time… there’s nothing to feel guilty about here. This isn’t an accusation or a demand for anything.”

Her hand circled the small bump of her belly and as she looked down, he saw her smile - not for him, but for the possibility that she was helping to grow. He felt an electric shock of pride move through him. The idea that a part of him would be forever connected to her, and that she was looking forward to that, touched him in a way he couldn’t quantify.

“You’re… happy,” he said with awe. She looked up and seemed as surprised as he was about it.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

They just sat in that moment staring at one another’s shock. To him, it was the most beautiful she’d ever been. There were no disguises and no doubts, just joy in this thing that was beyond anyone’s control now. He blinked several times and realized _shit, she really does love me…_ After a long moment, she collected herself.

“So, here’s where I’m at with this. It’s pretty obvious that I’m keeping this baby. That’s my choice and I take full responsibility for it. Whether you’re on board or not, we’re going to be a family,” she said firmly, and then followed up in a less confident tone. “Even if we aren’t… together… this baby is going to need a father and I really hope that you want to be that for her.”

“Her?” he said breathlessly.

“Oh… I don’t know that for certain. I’m just guessing. Maybe it’s just a sisterhood thing: us girls against the stubborn asshat who doesn’t realize that we love him.” She seemed resigned but not defeated when she said it, as if she’d just accepted gravity and now was finding a way to work with it. 

_She’d do it without me,_ he thought. _She’d link herself to me for the rest of her life without hesitation, even if I backed out of it. How could I have doubted that she knew what she wanted the whole time?_

“Listen,” Emily’s hand landed on his jaw and its warmth snapped his eyes to hers. She was as determined and confident as he’d ever seen her, and that shocked him down to his bones. “I’ve taken my time with this and I know how I feel. I love you and that’s not gonna change.” She sighed deeply. “I also know that there’s no way I can prove that to you. I’ll just have to live with that. It’s not dependent on your belief in its existence anyway.”

He stood quickly and stepped closer because the space between them felt like doubt. _Not because of me…_ He stared and stared watching her pupils slowly swallow up the deep brown surrounding them. Lines formed around her eyes while she waited for him to say something. He knew that it was probably hard for her to be patient but he was lost in what had blossomed in the last ten minutes - the sheer _possibility_ of it. His life would never be the same again. He was taking the time to appreciate that. And the fact that he was on the cusp of realizing the impossible.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” He skimmed her cheek and she blushed in his hand, clearly at a loss for words. “Do you know how it makes me feel that someone like you would choose someone like me?” She was about to object when he silenced her was a finger across her lips, then his hand ghosted down over the bump that was largely hidden in her dark sweater. _Part of me is there… with her. How is this any different from giving her my heart?_

“It’s not a cliché, or self-doubt this time,” he whispered, leaning in until he brushed her lips. “It’s delight.”

He took her lips gently, savoring their warmth and the hint of green tea on them. He’d spent nearly three months wondering if he’d ever kiss her again, or if he could forget how it felt if he had to. She hesitated against him, and then let him in, fingers of one hand wrapping into the fabric of his jacket and pulling on him ever so slightly. He pushed further, curling himself to fit next to her, cradling her face with both hands in reverence. She moaned a little, so quietly that he almost missed it, but he felt the skip of her pulse under his fingers and that was enough to set off fireworks in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Emily,” he breathed when they broke apart. “For every stupid move I made, for every righteous mistake. I was wrong about almost everything… I don’t know how to make amends for that…” 

“Guilt is so fucking useless, Spence,” she rolled her eyes, still a little flushed and shocked, but then she poked him sharply in the chest before doing the same thing to hers. “ _This_ is as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise even if you don’t understand that. It won’t live or die based on whether we can get over the mistakes we’ve made. And _this_ ,” she pointed down to the bump between them. “Is even more certain. She’s gonna come into this world adoring you - she won’t know how to do anything else. So, eighty-six the self-recrimination. Call that ‘making amends’ if it makes you feel better.”

He pulled her in for another soft kiss, and then the brandy did its work and made him brave. “I love you,” he whispered into her mouth. “Since Chicago. It came out of nowhere and much too quickly, and I freaked out in a spectacular fashion about it.”

“I know,” she kissed back. “I was there too remember, dumbass?”

“My point is, now that we’ve figured that part out, how do we do this? We live in different countries. We have separate lives. We don’t even have the luxury to _try_ and take our time with it because…” His hand pressed over her belly again.

“I’ve got some moves that I’m making at the moment,” she sighed against his cheek as she held him. “That’s what the phone call was about, and why I couldn’t meet you at Heathrow. But honestly, I don’t know how this is all gonna shake out just yet. I want to enjoy the fact that this conversation went better than I expected. I’ll save my other twelve hundred problems for tomorrow.”

He pulled back a little to look at her. “What did you think I’d say?”

“We only slept together one time, Spence,” she sighed. “And the rest has been… difficult. I didn’t know _what_ you’d say.”

He stared her down. “I’d never abandon you with this, no matter how I felt. We’ve been through too much together over the years, Emily. We’re a part of each other’s lives.”

“I know. But I didn’t want it to be just obligation.”

“It isn’t. And even if we were just friends, it wouldn’t be.”

She watched his face carefully, and then a tear slipped down her cheek like an afterthought. He brushed it away with his thumb.

“I’ve loved you since Chicago too,” she said, her voice very uneven. “It seems as though we made it all happen that morning in the bathroom, whether it made any sense at the time or not…”

“Well, at least we agree on that,” he grinned, and then he pulled her against him and hugged her as hard as he dared. She tucked her head under his chin and his hand found its way into her hair to stroke it. The shock was starting to wear off and suddenly a wall of exhaustion slammed into him.

“I feel like I’m gonna collapse,” he said into her hair. It smelled like jasmine and he breathed in deeply, which just made him sleepier. “Your kitchen floor looks really comfy right now.”

She chuckled and then her hands were moving, pushing him out of the room and towards a couch. His hands moved too - he wasn’t letting her go far. He just needed to stay connected for a while.

“So, how’s your first trip to England so far?” Her voice was sarcastic and familiar, like it had been in his mind for the past ten years.

“Way more startling than I could have anticipated.” He hoped that she didn’t find his honestly insulting. He just felt that he owed her the truth now. But she pushed him into the couch with a quiet laugh, and then flopped down next to him slipping her arms around him like she was his security blanket, and he was so grateful for that.

“Well, welcome to London, Doctor. Surprise!”


	15. Chapter 15

It was one in the morning and he was wide awake. Stupid jet lag. After their talk, he’d fallen asleep on her couch only to be awoken and coaxed into passing out in the guest room instead. That’s where he found himself, startled and disoriented, until it all came back to him. 

London. Emily. Love. _Baby._

Christ, he knew he wasn’t ready for this. But it was _everything_ he ever wanted. Screw the genius intellect or being a rockstar profiler or even making the world a better place because an incredible, out-of-his-league woman loved him and was offering him a family of his own. All he had to do was try not to be himself too much and mess it all up. And that’s when reality set in and he worried about how truthful he should be about it. Should he be honest with her about their chances? They were both profilers - she’d probably already done the analysis herself. But, God, he wanted to buck the odds on this one…

He stumbled out into Emily’s living room, rumpled and with his hair in an impossible tangle, and switched on as few lights as possible to keep from disturbing her. _Adults are chronically under-rested which leads to a whole host of physical and psychological consequences. Additionally, Emily is a light sleeper and a mother’s sleep patterns have appreciable implications on fetal development…_ And then his brain ground to a halt when he realized he was creeping around in an effort to ensure his baby got a good night’s sleep. 

_Jesus, I’m not ready for this._

He shook his head and booted up his laptop, trying to distract himself by working on his latest paper. But the text on the screen just blurred despite his glasses, and all he could do was endlessly circle his brain with questions. 

_Would Emily come back to the States with him? If she did, where would they live? He couldn’t afford a place like this in D.C. on his salary… Would Mom like her? Would her Mom like him? Would the baby be a Prentiss or a Reid? Was it too early to propose? Did she even want him to do that? He wanted to wake her up and ask her right now (but not really - she needs the sleep, honestly - don’t be so needy). Was it normal that he was insanely nervous about only having slept with her once? What if he turned out to be a disappointing lover after all of this? What would happen to her career? To his career? How would they keep their child safe from all the horrors that they faced? Was it selfish of him that he hoped the baby would take after Emily? Did he feel that way because he was worried about his genetics, or because he didn’t want to share his uniqueness with anyone else? Man, you are really, really, REALLY freaking out about this… you’ve got to stop before she notices. You can’t be this tightly wound - you’re going to be a Dad…_

“Can’t sleep?”

He actually yelped and leapt off the couch at the sound of her voice. She stared at him for a moment in shock before she collapsed into rolling laughter that had her leaning against the armrest and wiping her eyes.

“Holy crap… you’re like a one hundred and sixty pound cat,” she giggled and pointed.

“Quit sneaking up on me!”

“Who’s sneaking? I’m pregnant and was in your direct line of sight. It’s not like I was hiding behind the ficus tree or anything…”

“Sneaking,” he reiterated pointedly while closing his laptop and glaring at her. Thank god he wasn’t thinking out loud for once.

“Fine. I was sneaking. It’s the secret gift of pregnancy: ninja moves.” She rolled her eyes and headed for the kitchen. “Want some warm milk?”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” He followed her to the kitchen. “Did I wake you? I tried to be quiet.”

“You didn’t wake me. Trouble did. Sometimes she gets excited… or I do. It gets confusing because right now we’re basically the same person.” She pulled out a saucepan and milk, then she turned and raised her eyebrow at him as if asking again if he wanted some. He nodded sheepishly. “The jet lag’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” 

He watched her move around the kitchen. Her pajamas were tighter than her waking clothes had been and he got a more defined look at her body. If you’d never met her before, you would probably just assume that she was curvy. She wasn’t really showing that much. But he saw all of the subtle changes: she was fuller now, rounder - the belly was just a small part of it. She hummed something under her breath as she stirred the milk - she was probably unaware she was doing it - and it made him focus on her lips. They were pink, like the blush she’d worn earlier in the day, but it seemed as though she was flushed and vibrant all over. He didn’t want to use the term ‘glowing’ because it wasn’t that obvious, but whatever it was, it was heady and made every molecule in him sit up and take notice. He wondered if he was allowed to think these sorts of things again, if they were even appropriate given her current state. They had a lot of stuff to work out; it was a little daunting. 

“Have you always called her Trouble?” He cleared his throat and tried to get his mind to reboot.

She stopped stirring and thought for a second. “No. I think at first I just referred to her as ‘The Reidlet’, but it seemed too impersonal after a while. Trouble is more like an actual name.”

“Or a prediction.”

“Let’s hope not.” She winked at him and then fetched two mugs from the cupboards above her. His heart made a weird acrobatic dance in his chest when he thought about her calling the baby ‘Reidlet’, as if he’d been present and a part of this all along. She slid a mug to him across the counter and he wrapped his hands around it gratefully.

“Do you want a girl?” He wasn’t sure how he’d answer that question himself.

“You hear about parents saying things like ‘I don’t care so long as it’s healthy’. I always thought that was b.s. but now I get it. Boy or girl, I’m fine with it so long as it’s healthy and happy with hazel eyes and a big ol’ impressive brain.” She smiled at him in a way that made his stomach flip.

“Em,” he sighed. “You know my medical history. Maybe you oughta wish for something else…”

“The deed is done, Spencer.” She gave him a serious, considered look. “We can’t change how he or she is going to turn out now even if we wanted to. I’m choosing to hope for what I want most.”

“You want a baby like me?” he said incredulously.

“Yep.” She popped the ‘p’ to emphasize her point.

“Why?”

“ ‘Cause there’s no one else like you. Not that I’ve met, anyway. You’re one of a kind, Spence, which is both great and terrifying if you’re in love because it makes everything seem rarer. Harder to get over, ya know?” She gave him a meaningful look, and then shrugged, drinking her milk. “But being unique also means that you’re sorta alone your whole life. You don’t have any siblings, and your Mom’s just altered enough to be out of reach. Even if we did our best with this for our entire lives and didn’t screw up once, there’d still be things about you that I wouldn’t understand.”

Yeah, she knew the odds already. But she still wanted to try. He couldn’t believe it. 

“If this baby turns out like you, there’ll be someone else in the world who ‘gets’ you. Another member of your tribe, so to speak. You won’t be alone anymore - you’ll have both a family and _maybe_ the understanding that’s eluded you all these years. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.”

His chest constricted so suddenly that he gasped and clutched his mug until his knuckles turned white. He forced himself to stare at the tiled countertop. His vision was blurring and he didn’t want her to notice, but in the end he had to pull off his glasses and wipe his eyes anyway so it was a wasted effort. He wasn’t going to be able to convince her that he was taking this all in stride.

“Spencer? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t care what this baby is,” he blurted, still viciously rubbing his eyes. “I don’t care if she’s like you, or me, or something altogether different. I don’t care if she understands me or not. She’s a sliver of you and me. I love her already. Her amygdalae aren’t even developed enough yet to know what love is but it doesn’t matter. I’m hers and she’s mine and that’s all that really counts in the end.” 

He settled his glasses back across his nose and took a breath to calm himself before looking at her again. She was wide eyed, waiting to see what he dropped next, with her cup of milk hanging halfway between the counter and her mouth. 

“And I’ll be yours like that too if you let me,” he finished quietly, looking her straight in the eye to let her know that he was as serious about it as she was about not wanting him to be alone his whole life. It was that important. “A part of your tribe or… however that works.”

“What are you saying?” she asked eventually.

“What I’m saying is that I don’t know what happens now. There are a lot of obstacles between us and a happy ending on this one. A lot. We’ve only been together once… maybe we’ll be awful together… It’s a huge risk.”

“Spencer, that’s not-”

He held up his hand to stop her and to his surprise, she did. She was always good like that - waiting for him to finish what he started because he always took his time with things. It made him feel _seen_ every single time. He pushed away from his seat at the counter and came round to her side, just an arm’s length from her.

“When I said that I love the baby simply because I’m hers and she’s mine… I love her that way because that’s how I love you. I don’t care if you ever understand me completely, Em, because knowing that you _try_ and you’re worried you’ll fail at it means more to me than anything else. And maybe that won’t be enough - I don’t know. But if it isn’t and we end, I’ll still be yours because I think that’s how I’m built.”

He reached out and cupped her elbow in his palm. He stroked his fingers along the soft fabric of her shirt like he was memorizing something.

“I wanted to be known. I wanted to love someone. But I never let anyone make a dent but you. I think that says a lot.”

His hand left her elbow and rose up to brush the hair away from her neck. She watched him carefully, saying nothing, but he felt her shiver under his fingertips.

“I’m trying not to be unrealistic about this,” he murmured as he stepped closer. “I don’t know if I can make you happy. You’ll find me tedious and annoying. I’m a workaholic and you’ll probably feel ignored. I might be a terrible father. Someday you’ll call me emotionally unavailable and you’ll be right. I’ll disappoint you. I’ll let you down. I’ll become real and flawed and a whole lot less special than you currently think I am. There may be misery, and perhaps far too much adventure and drama to be considered healthy. But I’ll give you my life, Em. Everything I have, right now and for good. I’ll love you ‘til my last breath. You can count on that.”

He dipped in slowly, hesitantly, and then sealed her lips lightly with his own. He was breathless before he began and lightheaded when he pulled away again to see her reaction. She was flushed, her cheeks now the same color as her lips. She licked them quickly and he wanted to do the same but he became mesmerized by the darkness of her eyes and the feel of her fingertips trailing lightly up his back under his shirt.

“Are you… asking what I think you’re asking?” she murmured. He bent into her and brushed her lips with his.

“Do you know what mamihlapinatapai means?”

She arched an eyebrow that said ‘of course I don’t know what that means’.

“It’s a rather elegant word in an obscure language for a complex state of being. There’s no direct equivalent in English. It’s basically a state of desire that exists between two people, which both want but neither wants to initiate. Something unspoken, but unconsciously understood, that stretches out in an almost impossible suspended animation.”

“Hmmmm. Sounds like our entire relationship,” she breathed against his cheek.

“Maybe.”

“So, you’re asking a question by _not_ asking it, and you don’t expect a response? Is that what’s going on here?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you and Trouble no matter how this turns out. I’m making you that promise now before everything gets more complicated and clouds the issue. The question I’m not asking would just add another layer of stress to this situation, but it illustrates where my heart’s at, and you need to know that. You don’t have to give me an answer ever if you don’t want to, but I want that understanding to exist between us. Does that make any sense?”

She stared at him, mouth hanging open a little. She was sort of… blank all over, and he started to worry that he’d pushed things too far.

“Fuck,” she muttered finally. “How do you say it again? Mamilapi-what?”

“Mamihlapinatapai.”

She said the word once, methodically, under her breath, and then her hand curled into the hair along the back of his neck and pulled him down for a searing kiss. He experienced a split second of shock at how heated it was and then his hands flashed to her face and drew her painfully close. He moaned openly, like he was finally admitting everything that he’d kept tamped down since Chicago. Her hand along his back gripped him tightly and she rolled up on the balls of her feet to get more of him. He sunk into her, just enjoying the slip of them together and the simple animal need to have more of her. So basic, so easy. His hands left her face, skimming down her body and hooking around her waist until he lifted her against him so that she was eye level with him. She wriggled a little, making a trilling noise on his lips, and looped a leg over his hip. She pressed against him and he became keenly aware of her breasts, her belly, and the soft, warm curves of her that were accentuated and new. He remembered that morning in Chicago when neither one of them wanted to leave that bathroom. He remembered the feeling that evening when he lay awake in the bed across from hers and ached with doubt. He remembered when they finally gave into one another - the madness of it and the terrible stalled want that followed. He thought about her now pressed against him in his arms, how the very thought of her put his whole being on high alert.

She pulled away from his mouth breathlessly. “Forget the milk. I’ve got a better cure for sleeplessness.”

She stretched her legs until her feet touched the floor again and then she grabbed his hands and dragged him to the kitchen door. He followed her, still lost in a haze of her, kissing and grasping as they shuffled together. She yanked his hand impatiently and when he looked up he saw the doorway to the master bedroom and he pulled up short.

“Oh… uh, a-are you sure, Em?” he huffed under the confusing mix of nerves and arousal. 

“Yes,” she tugged him again.

“Well, uh… what about… you know?”

“What about _what?_ ”

“Trouble,” he coughed and felt ridiculous. She took a moment and then laughed at him, cupping his jaw.

“It’s perfectly all right. The doctor said so long as I’m healthy and I want to, sex is fine. Maybe even beneficial. Orgasms have all sorts of neurobiological payoffs - you told me that on that case in… where was it? Milwaukee?”

“Pittsburgh.” His cheeks flamed.

“Yeah,” she growled and then kissed him until his head spun. “Were you flirting with me back then? You know, with the orgasm info dump an’ all…”

“No. I just thought it was relevant and interesting at the time.”

“Orgasms are always relevant and interesting.” She tugged him towards the bedroom again and this time he didn’t put up any fight at all. “Let me show you.”

And she did. She laid him down and took her time; they had the luxury of one another’s attention and zero distractions. She mapped him out in detail with her fingers, her lips, and her tongue. She pinned him down, made him arch and gasp under her while she smiled and rolled her hips into him deeply again and again and again. Words fell from him like rain - secret, midnight things that he’d never told anyone else. The need stunned him, but it must have floored her. When she stilled and he reached out asking what he’d done wrong, the way her voice broke over his name made him feel that there’d never been anyone but him. Then he pushed her back into the pillows and moved in her, relentless and escalating as the tide. He whispered ‘sweetheart’ before she came, and she cried out against his chest in surprise and stuttered relief. He dipped his face to her neck and worked them through it, mumbling the word into her skin until it was meaningless and his body shook all sense from him. He trembled above her, watching as his energy drained into her, and she looked at him as if she could read every line of him, every crease and tangle. _To be known like this… God, who wouldn’t want this?_ She whispered his name and he dropped to her lips with a hushed ‘yes’.

He flopped onto the pillow next to her when they came up for air, and she gasped, “Well… that’s one thing sorted out.” 

“What’s that?”

“Sex isn’t going to be a problem.”

He was shaky and just barely conscious, but an instinctual part of him sat back, popped his feet up onto the desk, and grinned with smug satisfaction at her words. 

“Oh good…” he said weakly as he heard her chuckle into the pillows beside him. He reached out and pulled her to him, spooning her up in the ridiculously huge bed. He buried his face in her hair and laid a possessive hand over her stomach. Everything was shadows and jasmine and their combined smell lost in the hint of fabric softener from the sheets.

“Sleep now,” he whispered.

“Yes, dear,” she whispered back.


	16. Chapter 16

Sunlight woke him, and he was again disoriented until he turned in the mess of linens and pillows to find her tucked in close behind him. Her hair was a tangled ink stain against the morning brightness of the room, her skin a flush darker than the bed sheets. As he moved she unconsciously shuffled nearer to keep them together, and when she nuzzled against his neck and sighed something that sounded a little like his name, his whole body was instantly on point for her again. He couldn’t help but kiss her then - first into her hair, and then down her face, her neck, her breasts - taking his time and being feather light until she roused against him. His hands roamed too, over her curves and freckled skin and the scars she tried to hide. He loved that he knew them all, that he could detail each one and that she’d long since given up trying to camouflage them from him. She sighed again above him and when he looked up she was staring at him in sleepy anticipation, as if they woke up like this frequently. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question and she nodded slowly in response as he kissed his way back up to her mouth. They took each other quietly, with aching slowness, and afterwards as they lay panting in the sun-warmed sheets he thought _I want this - even if it goes wrong - for the rest of my life._ And then, instead of wondering whether he was worthy of it or if it were possible, his brain just skipped to the part where he started formulating a way to achieve it. 

“Can we talk about your plan?” he asked when they’d finally caught their breath.

“My plan?” She still looked a little dazed and he told the part of himself that was really proud of that to pipe down. They had work to do.

“Em, I know you: you don’t get up in the morning without a plan. Surely you’ve been working on something for this.” His hand slid under the sheets until it landed as a warm weight across her belly. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She sighed and then stared at him for a long time. “I resigned from Interpol three weeks ago.”

He blinked and then shuffled up against the headboard so that he could sit. It made him feel as though he had a better grip on things. “You did? Why?”

“Because regardless of how your visit might have turned out, I knew that I had to move back to the States. I have no support system here and very few friends - just the job and colleagues. Maybe I don’t know much about becoming a Mom but I know I’m going to need help. If I’m stateside I’ll have Mom and my friends, all of you guys from the Unit…”

Reid nodded. “J.J.’s gonna flip out. And Garcia. They won’t ask permission first - they’re just gonna be there.”

“And I needed the time to figure all of this out.” She blinked up at him from the pillows. “I told you that I’ve been having more capable days of late, but I still spend plenty of time panicking about this. I can’t do that on the job - I need to focus. At this point in my life, I need to focus on _this._ ”

She rubbed her hand over her belly brushing his fingers absently.

“Besides, Jenkins was ready to take over. He did a great job while I was on the task force - it was time. It’s part of why I recruited him in the first place. I knew I’d leave some day and I wasn’t gonna leave the place in a mess when I did.”

“That explains his obscure comments on the ride over.”

“Obscure?”

“You know, he’s a lot like Hotch…”

She grinned. “I know, right? When I met him I thought they could be brothers. Who better to leave the shop to than a slightly-more-uptight, tea-drinking Hotch clone?”

“ _More_ uptight? That’s hard to picture…”

He laughed but she just watched him and waited for it to pass. Then she rose up on one elbow to look at him, the sheet slipping down to reveal her as she did. She didn’t seem to notice; she was focused on his expression.

“About Hotch…” she began.

“What about him?” His stomach suddenly turned to lead.

“He resigned from the Bureau last week, Spencer.”

“W-what? That’s not… I saw him before I caught my flight… he didn’t say a thing.” He felt cold despite the sunlight. His skin started to goosepimple. _Too much change… too, too much…_

“He’s staying on until a replacement can be hired. He hasn’t told the team yet - obviously - but both Cruz and the Director know. He emailed me to let me know that he’d recommended _me_ for his job.”

Reid stared at her unable to muster a definable emotion. Hotch was their leader, the father of their mixed bag of a family. He loved them. Didn’t he? Why would he leave? _Fathers leave, Genius…_ , his mind snarked.

“He’s… he’s been there for my whole career,” Reid whispered, staring at nothing in particular. “He taught me to shoot, showed me how to take care of myself, he respected me even though I was just a kid…”

“Spence,” she murmured wetly and leaned up to press into his side as if he’d collapse from the shock of it all.

“Why?” he breathed, finally looking at her again.

“He’s been through so much, Spence.” She ran a hand along his jaw and circled her fingers against his cheek. “He’s tired. And this Peter Lewis thing… remember what you said about him picking up and finding a nicer beach? He’s been loyal to the Bureau for a long time, but they haven’t exactly returned the sentiment over the years, have they?”

“But we _need_ him,” he growled and was shocked at the hurt that briefly flashed across her face before she could cover it. That’s when he realized he wasn’t focusing on the right thing.

“He understands what’s at stake. And, like me, he wouldn’t think of leaving the place in a mess when he goes.”

He suddenly remembered what she said at the beginning. “He wants _you_ to be the next Unit Chief?”

“Not just him. The Director does as well. That’s who I was on the phone to when you arrived. Both he and Hotch agree that bringing in a familiar face will make the transition smoother. And I have the requisite experience. I’ve been offered first refusal at it.”

“What about Rossi? I mean, he and Gideon started the department in the first place…”

“Hotch asked Dave before he put in his paperwork, and Dave refused. He’s always been more of a lone wolf anyway. I think he’s contemplating re-retiring in the near future. And the Director seemed to obliquely suggest that age was a factor.”

Reid ran his fingers through his hair. He wondered how much a person’s life could change in one week. “So… you’re my new boss…” How the hell was _that_ going to work?

“I haven’t said yes yet.” 

She let her hand fall away as she sat back against the headboard with him. He just stared at her and waited. She wouldn’t have said all of those things to him - fallen into bed with him again - if her next choice didn’t include him. Would she?

“Do you want it?”

“It’s not that simple. I’ve had to ask for special considerations.” Her hand went to her belly absently. “I’m carrying a team member’s child, for chrissakes.”

“You didn’t tell him that, did you?”

She shrugged. “I had to be honest. I can’t hide this, and it has an impact on my ability to do the job.”

His mouth dropped open. “You outed us to the Director of the FBI?”

“Spencer, I had to.” She reached for him, her forehead creasing with worry. “You’re one of my conditions.”

“One of your _conditions?_ ” His voice was getting a bit too high. He had to calm down a little.

She fidgeted. “You cannot be removed from the team unless either you or I request it. I needed the Director to put the dispensation in writing: that I will be working with the legal next of kin to my dependent child. You know that the Bureau has rules that prevent couples from working together… even if we weren’t a couple, I had to get the Director on board.”

“He agreed?”

She nodded. “Rossi would be your direct supervisor but, yes, we can work on the same team if we want it. He was okay with me coming back, only to go on maternity leave in a few months, and he was even okay with my stipulation that we travel less and enhance our consult services instead. We could be doing more with less fieldwork. Granted, there was a costs benefit argument that I made for that one which appealed to him, but he was open to many of the changes I brought up. It’ll be a different Unit if I step in - it has to be if we’re going to move on from Hotch. Basically, I think I can write my own ticket… they really want me there.”

He understood why the Director was eager: she had experience, existing relationships, all of the tools and background knowledge needed, as well as an inherent political mindset to negotiate the waters of the Bureau’s upper management. The choice would’ve seemed like a slam dunk for the department and it would smooth out the possibly acrimonious exit of a beloved chief. Maybe the Director even thought that Emily would be easier to work with than Hotch. He had always been more dedicated to his team than to the Bureau as an entity, though Reid seriously doubted that Emily would be any less team-focused than Hotch was. But Reid still hesitated - she hadn’t said yes yet, had she?

“You haven’t accepted the offer though,” he murmured. “Why?”

She sighed and ducked her gaze away. And then she pressed her palm against the center of his chest and just held it there. He looked down and imagined that he could see the minute movement of her hand rising and falling with the beat of his heart.

“I needed to convince myself that I could do it first,” she whispered.

“But you already do. You’ve been doing it for three years with Interpol…”

“No, I mean… I needed to convince myself that I could do it _with you_ before I said yes.”

She looked up through her tangled hair and seemed impossibly vulnerable to him. The fact that she had doubts blew him away a little - that wasn’t like her. She must’ve have read it on him.

“I told you that I didn’t know how this visit would work out between us,” she continued. “If we agreed to raise Trouble and nothing more, I didn’t know if I could face seeing you everyday. The flip side to that is if we _do_ have something more, I don’t know if I could send you into harm’s way. We both understand what this job entails and _I just don’t know_ if I can do it with or without you.”

He stared blankly at her for an instant before he leaned in and cupped both sides of her face. He didn’t really think about it - something moved him saying that _this_ was part of his job now. His thumbs stroked into her skin while he stared her down and thought about the future.

“You’ve been carving your own path for as long as I’ve known you, Emily. I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the only time you’ve questioned your abilities, but you’ve never let that stop you before. Personally, I think that if there’s anyone who can put us back together when Hotch leaves it’s you. But I can’t predict the future - I don’t know how we’ll work together. I only know how we _have_ worked together, and that’s always been a good dynamic. The only thing you should be asking yourself is: do you want the job?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then you know what to do,” he interrupted. “You need to be confident - yes - but not too comfortable. We both know how twitchy you get when you’re too comfortable.”

She huffed but one side of her mouth curled into a smirk.

“Besides, how can you turn down the opportunity to boss me around? Isn’t that a fantasy, or something?” He wiggled his eyebrows and made her laugh gently. “You can do this and I know that because I know _you_ , Emily Prentiss. It’s time to carve a new path. Make the Unit your own.”

The heaviness in his gut lifted as he said it. Losing Hotch would be tremendous, but his faith in Emily was similarly tremendous. She’d made the impossible real over and over, and he suddenly felt a tickle of anticipation that they might come together again like this - as partners.

“You do know me,” she murmured as her fingers rose up his chest until they circled around his suprasternal notch. “But will you do it with me, Spencer?”

“I’ll always have your back, Em. That’s not just my job, it’s my purpose.”

The tickle flared and became an electric current humming under his skin. She rose up on her knees suddenly and pushed into him, burying her face into his neck as she clutched him close. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t either, but the way their pulses were beating against each other spoke loudly. He smoothed his hands along her back, up into her hair, down her sides and around her waist, just enjoying his right to do so. She breathed against him and he measured it until it was even and regular.

“I’ll call the Director tomorrow,” she said, sounding like the Prentiss he’d had confidence in for years. The current inside him arced and snapped. He smiled against her ear.

“That’s good to hear, Ma’am.”

“Don’t call me Ma’am.”

“Chief?”

“No.”

“Boss lady?”

“No.” 

“El jefe?”

“What’s wrong with you?” 

“The Big Kahuna?”

“I could shoot you and get away with it, you know…”

He held up his hands in surrender and chuckled as she silenced him with her lips. Then she pushed him back down into the pillows.

“And don’t ever call a pregnant woman a ‘big’ anything if you value your balls…”


	17. Chapter 17

Reid spent the next few days trying to be useful.

He cooked for her, which seemed to catch her entirely off guard (and he quickly learned that he had to ask whether she felt like eating before or after she threw up in the morning). He felt it was unfathomable that a thirty-something, single man wouldn’t know how to feed himself, but obviously his aura of ineptitude still persisted through the years. At any rate, she found the sight of him cooking to be amusing and then the taste of his meals to be surprising, and he’d take both of those reactions from her any day of the week. 

He helped with errands and the beginnings of packing up her flat. To his shock and unqualified joy, he discovered that she had a secret comic book collection. After she tried to deny that they were hers, and then relented with his solemn promise of absolute secrecy on the matter, they spent an afternoon in mutual nerd-vana on the floor of her bedroom discussing characters and stories with the colorful covers fanning out around them. His pulse quickened each time he thought of Emily and added ‘undercover nerd’ to her growing list of descriptors. 

He forced her out into the grey London drizzle at least once a day under the thinly veiled excuse of ‘sightseeing’ but was actually an excuse for both of them to stretch their legs and talk about more lighthearted things. She grumbled about the congestion and the weather, but ten minutes into it she was grinning and pointing out the nerdy facts she knew about each new place. He curled his arm around her under their umbrella and cherished every soggy step. He kissed her in Trafalgar Square. He had tea with her in the Kensington High Street. He made them make a wish in the middle of Westminster Bridge staring down into the Thames. He gave a long dissertation about why the London Eye was a menace of modern architecture while she patted his arm and looked idly into shop windows. They came back each day and tended to a little bit of business. She still had some things to tie up at Interpol and Jenkins called everyday with a question or two. Reid worked on his paper and sent vague emails back home to Garcia and J.J. who pestered him for vacation details. At night they ordered in: a strange array of exotic fare that reflected the complicated city around them. One evening Reid ate a curry so spicy that for fifteen minutes he envisioned being dispatched to his eternal rest by a deity he didn’t believe in. Emily just laughed at him and helped herself to seconds.

He found it all amazing, and perhaps far too easy. The idea that he wasn’t struggling with this new dynamic was simultaneously mind-blowing and terrifying. It was supposed to be difficult, wasn’t it? It always seemed so when he watched his friends do it. He’d never spent so much concentrated time with another person since his childhood. Every day he expected her to demand some alone time or to snap at him when his presence grated on her. But even when she fell into the grips of a hormonal surge, she’d wipe away the inexplicable tears or wave off the hysterical laughter and just say “gimme a minute”. After an especially disturbing incident in which she directed some primal screaming at her recalcitrant dishwasher, she leaned against the kitchen countertop and watched him as he moved around like a spooked baby deer.

“Spencer, it’s the hormones,” she sighed, clearly exhausted by her own antics. “I mean, I’m crazy, but I’m not _this_ crazy.”

Perhaps he knew that but he still waited for the other shoe to drop.

At night she curled around him in bed and they murmured back and forth about anything that popped into their heads. Sometimes it led to something, sometimes it didn’t, but he ended up craving the connection no matter how it turned out. He traced shapes across her belly when she drifted off, as if he were communicating with their child in a half-understood language. He wondered if Trouble could feel his fingertips, he wondered if she already knew that she was wanted.

Two nights before he was to return home he became restless and couldn’t sleep. Padding quietly into the living room, he tried to lose himself in a coffee table book Emily had about Minoan art. In time she followed him, pulling the book from his hands and stroking hair away from his face.

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m here,” he murmured but she shook her head. 

“No, you’re not.”

She shuffled in front of him and then gently lowered herself into his lap. His hands landed on her hips on their own and began to massage light circles into her skin because _that’s_ how they were with each other now. It had taken less than a week.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Spence.”

He sighed as his arms pulled her closer, hands skimming under her nightshirt until they rested on her shoulder blades. “I don’t want to leave.” He buried his face into her neck.

“I don’t want you to leave either,” she whispered. “But we talked about this. I’m taking the job. I just need to finish up my business here, and then I’ll join you. It shouldn’t be more than a month.”

He shook his head against her and tightened his grip. “No. I don’t want to leave because if I do it’ll never be like this again. What if you come home and you grow tired of me? I’m sort of amazed that you aren’t tired of me already…”

Her hand found his chin and directed his face to look up at her. Then she took his mouth, deep and soft and slow. He pulled her even closer wanting the moment to stretch out indefinitely.

“I’m sure that it will be different when I get stateside.” She pulled away and brushed the words across his mouth. “I _hope_ it is. I hope it grows into something else because, yeah, I want this, but I also want more than this.”

“More than this? But what-”

She laid a finger over his lips to silence him. “Remember what I said about your crippling sense of inadequacy? Don’t ‘what if’ this, Spencer. I love you and I’m selfish about it. I want every last drop I can wring from it.”

She took his mouth again more urgently and he met her need with roving hands and a deep moan. She smiled into his kiss, lighting him up, and then she mumbled things he couldn’t make out but imagined were beyond description anyway. She arced against him in what little room he gave her; he felt her back curl under his palms and her hips roll into his. He didn’t want to fall mindlessly into lust again, but when she reached between them trying to clear their clothes and then lining them up, he pulled her down with a gratified whimper as they began to move together. _This_ was also something that he felt should have been a lot more difficult for them than it was.

“You’re just trying to shut me up,” he gasped.

“I’m trying to shut _a part of you_ up,” she smiled against his cheek as they moved. “Why can’t you just believe me?”

“I believe in you implicitly.” He pulled her into his hips and made them both groan. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“Then… what?” She bit his neck, almost in warning that his answer had better be good.

He pushed into her hard and lost himself in her warmth for a time that was only measured in cinched skin and stuttered breaths. He gasped along her neck, licking at the frantic beat of her pulse when he found it, grateful beyond all recognition that she could want him _that much_. It almost didn’t seem real.

“You’re giving me a lot,” he whispered as their bodies synced up into a long, sinuous stroke. “I don’t know what I’m giving to you…”

“Home,” she whined after an achingly suspended moment.

“What?”

“You’re bringing me home, Spence…” She gasped and then cried out, a mournful sound that automatically made him hold her closer to fend it off. Then she shuddered in his arms, hips rolling, nails biting into his skin, and he felt dampness against his neck where she’d pressed her face. He let her control it, doing what she wanted with him until she went limp, and then he gently pulled her face away so that he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“Home, Spencer,” she murmured, sounding thoroughly wrecked. “Like the way you feel about the word as a child: some golden place where you’re loved and welcomed, the light in the window on a dark night that tells you that you’ll be safe and dry soon. That’s what you’re giving me.”

Her voice hiccupped a little and one of his hands moved to brush the wetness from her face on instinct.

“I’ve been wandering out in the darkness for decades, and you’re the candle that’s finally lighting my way home.”

He stared at her and held her face, every inch of him harder than he could imagine - not from arousal but from the basic need she was expressing. _Home. Yeah._ He slowly brushed one cheek and then the other as she watched him process it with wide eyes. When his fingertips started to stroke her now-dry face, she sighed and leaned into his touch like she’d been holding onto that idea for too long and was happy to be relieved of it.

“Okay,” he whispered, and kissed her lips, her cheeks, her temple - anywhere that he felt needed to be cherished. He wouldn’t spend anymore time waiting for her to change her mind, not now when he understood that she felt he was giving her something she’d never thought she’d get as well. He felt as though understanding that was the key to her.

In the morning, he got up before her and slipped out into the city. When he found the antiques store again on Portobello Road he had to wait thirty minutes for the bespectacled shop owner to arrive. The man’s initial irritation at having his quiet morning ruined by a twitchy American was mollified when Reid pointed out the item he came for in the jewelry case and then told him how he wanted it inscribed.

The shopkeeper’s smile was a little condescending. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer it in English, sir? No one will understand.”

“No,” he said, mentally adding _she’s smarter than you_.

He returned to the flat with a small velvet box in his pocket and a grocery bag full of breakfast things. Her head popped out from the edge of the master bedroom at the sound of the elevator closing.

“Where’d you go?”

He held up the grocery bag. “Breakfast.”

“Kippers?” she looked hopeful.

“Yes.” He made a face. Who ate fish for breakfast? He was going to make crepes and feel superior about it. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded, and then turned green so quickly it shocked him. Then she held up a finger and gulped “Hold on a sec” before dashing to the bathroom. He shook his head and unpacked the food before warming up the crepe pan. In the distance terrible noises came from the bathroom. He patted the square shape in his pocket thoughtfully. It might be some time before he needed it, but it was best to be prepared.


	18. Chapter 18

On the morning of the day he was to fly home, Reid rose early unable to still his anxiety. He went to the bathroom so that he wouldn’t disturb Emily, and ended up staring at his reflection for too long. It had only been seven days but it felt like much more. He was all in now and there was this string around his heart, under his ribs, that bound him to her, and he didn’t know how far it could stretch or how much pain it would cause when it did. He was going home and she said that she’d follow, but he didn’t know when and that’s because real life is a hell of a lot more grey than the black and white of a love affair.

He stripped off his shirt and lathered up his face as he tried to prepare himself for the day to come. He fell into the meditation of shaving and nearly cut himself when he came to and saw her staring at him in the mirror’s reflection. He huffed and gave her a lopsided smile as he turned to face her. She smiled back though her eyes didn’t match it; no doubt they were thinking similar thoughts. 

She pushed away from the doorframe and padded into the bathroom. Stopping before him, she gently pulled the razor from his hand. She stood there in nothing but an oversized t-shirt holding his razor, and his whole being warmed when he recognized the unspoken request in her eyes. He wanted to fold up that moment, press it between paper for safekeeping, and tuck it away in a pocket next to his heart. Maybe if he could manage that, he’d be able to unfold and relive it as often as he needed to, whenever the loneliness got to be too much.

He wordlessly slouched against the counter and then stretched the still-foamy side of his face towards her. The smile it brought to her face made his heart struggle behind his ribs. She leaned in, touched his chin and gently adjusted the angle before taking a long, sure swipe with the blade. She took another, and another, delicately clearing the shaving foam from his jaw and neck as she moved him this way and that with the soft brush of her fingertips. He watched her the whole time, adoring every stroke. She finished with a last pass over his Adam’s apple, and then rinsed him gently with a cool cloth like he was a fever victim. She shuffled a little closer, reaching past him to his toiletry bag for his aftershave. He watched her hands as she splashed them, and then his eyes went back to hers when she looked at him and smoothed her scented palms along his jaw. Her gaze was glassy but her smile was simply amazing. _Thank you_ , it said. The string tugged sharply around his heart.

“Now you’re perfect,” she murmured, still holding his face. The string tugged again. _Mamihlapinatapai._

He smiled and brought his mouth to hers, not thinking about time or obstacles or grey confusion.

 _Mamihlapinatapai._ They were going to be fine.


	19. Chapter 19

**Date:** April 3, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** We can’t keep calling her Trouble

Lynn  
Diane  
Ruth  
Hanna  
Phoebe  
Joan  
Mabel  
Sían  
Caitlyn  
Priya  
Verity  
Rona  
Tuesday  
Lea

Anything jump out?

I miss you.  
\- S.

 

**Date:** April 4, 2017  
 **To:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: We can’t keep calling her Trouble

~~Lynn~~  
 ~~Diane~~  
 ~~Ruth~~  
 ~~Hanna~~  
 ~~Phoebe~~  
 ~~Joan~~  
 ~~Mabel~~ \- are you kidding me with this one?  
 ~~Sían~~ \- pretty, but no one will ever get it right the first time  
 ~~Caitlyn~~  
 ~~Priya~~  
 ~~Verity~~  
 ~~Rona~~  
 ~~Tuesday~~ \- okay, now I know yer messing with me  
 ~~Lea~~

What if she’s a _he?_

I miss you too. The bed’s just humungous without you.

Someone put in a tentative offer on the flat. Fingers crossed.

 

**Date:** April 5, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Names, part II

You could come up with a few of your own, you know…

Unisex, in case Trouble ends up with a Y chromosome:

Charlie  
Sean (I’m putting it _back_ on the list, just re-spelled)  
Bailey  
Rae  
Morgan (he insisted. Oh, by the way, I told Morgan. I needed to talk to someone and he’s not on the team anymore, so… I hope you don’t mind. I swore him to secrecy, in case that mitigates this at all…)  
Zoe  
Devon  
Cameron  
Cary  
Jay  
Lee

Okay, this is harder than I thought. If you don’t like any of these, it’s your turn to make a list.

 

Hotch told the team yesterday. It’s like everyone’s in mourning. Then the Director sent out a memo announcing Rossi as temporary chief. I don’t know how to act. This is really weird. I wish you were here already. 

 

**Date:** April 7, 2017  
 **To:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: Names, part II

Short List:  
Charlie - Yes! But no: Manson  
Sean   
Bailey  
Zoe   
Cary - I really like this one

I don’t mind that you talked to Morgan. Honestly, I’m surprised that you kept ‘us’ to yourself for so long, even before your London visit. He’s a good listener and I have all the faith in the world that he’ll sort things out in your noodle if you start going a little scooters before I get there ;) Regardless, I’ll expect a super defensive email from him about his ‘Pretty Boy’ shortly.

The Director wants my appointment to be a ‘surprise’ (?) I think it’s a terrible idea, but since Rossi will be in charge once I’m on mat leave anyway, maybe it’s best to get the team used to the concept. By the way, I bought my plane ticket today - the details are attached. May 1st is the date - clear out all of the other girlfriends before I get there, okay?

I accepted the bid on the flat. The deal closes on Friday. I am no longer a member of the English landed gentry!

I miss your smell and the way seeing you in glasses turns me into an awkward teenaged girl.

 

**Date:** April 7, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: re: Names, part II

My glasses turn _you_ into an awkward teenager?!? Who would’ve thought that it went both ways…

 

**Date:** April 7, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** profilethismf@gmail.com   
**Subject:** Reid

Can we just skip the part where I threaten your life if you hurt him? Cool.

You need to get stateside a.s.a.p. I can’t keep this secret from Garcia forever. As it is, she’ll probably rip one of my nuts off when she finds out I didn’t tell her the moment I found out. Are you doing okay, P.? Seriously, I don’t know if you two could’ve made this more convoluted if you tried. Savannah wants me to tell you that she’s at your service, either medically or about baby stuff. And I’m already looking for places for you - Reid hasn’t asked yet but his apartment just won’t work for you guys. We both know it.

Also, he’s carrying around a ring in his pocket. He bought it in London apparently. You and I both know how weird he can get about this stuff so, maybe, when you’re ready, just rifle through his things and put it on. Save us all the trouble of calming him down and walking him through it.

This threw me for a loop, P., but I gotta say that I think it’s pretty great news. Just… love him well, okay? I’ve never seen him like this - he’s crazy for you. It’s like he’s rediscovered what hope means.

I can’t wait for Hank to become a bad influence on your kid ;)

\- D.

 

**Date:** April 10, 2017  
 **To:** profilethismf@gmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** Re: Reid

Your email address will never cease to be inappropriate, Derek.

Thanks for your support (and thank Savannah too) - we’re gonna need it.

I’ll be arriving May 1st and I can’t wait to see you guys.

You don’t have to worry about Reid (though I know you will anyway). Somehow we’ve become woven together. I won’t expand on that because it’ll get sappy and ruin your manly reputation if anyone catches you weeping in front of your computer as a result. You can thank me for this kindness at a later date.

I’m doing fine. D. Better than fine. But it always makes me feel solid to know you’re in my corner.

\- Emily.

 

**Date:** April 16, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** dont_bother_im_spoofing@gmail.com   
**Subject:** WHAT THE WHAT????

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME???

 

**Date:** April 16, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** profilethismf@gmail.com   
**Subject:** Garcia knows

Sorry.  
\- D.

 

**Date:** April 16, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** Oh man

Morgan spilled the beans to Garcia. She’s, uh… worked up over it. Be prepared.

I miss you. I love you. I’m sorry. But I also can’t wait to tell everyone.

\- S.

 

**Date:** April 17, 2017  
 **To:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com; profilethismf@gmail.com; dont_bother_im_spoofing@gmail.com  
 **From:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **Subject:** *facepalm*

Everyone take a firm grip of your underwear and yank it from your collective ass cracks. I’m the one who’s pregnant, changing jobs, and moving to another country. Why am I the only calm one?

I’ll be there in 13 days. Can we table the freak-out until then? That would be swell.

See you soon, weirdos…  
\- Emily.

 

**Date:** April 18, 2017  
 **To:** blackbird_freebird@gmail.com  
 **From:** toomanysweaters@hotmail.com  
 **Subject:** It needs to be said

You are categorically wonderful and your lack of bullshit tolerance is stunning.

You also used ‘swell’ in an email. I’m irreversibly in love with you. Can’t wait to demonstrate it in person.

Writing from a wedgie-free state,  
\- S.


	20. Chapter 20

Her flight was two hours late. He was now intimately familiar with every inch of the arrivals area at Dulles. Her plane arrived just as two others did from Hong Kong and Cairo, so the flood of exhausted, bewildered travelers trying to make their way from baggage claim to the parking lot was truly astounding - it was a bit like a Middle Eastern bazaar, but with luggage. Reid craned his neck, stretching as tall as he could to see over the hoard of awaiting loved ones to find her. In the end he just waved his hand above the crowd and hoped that she’d be able to pick him out over all of the other waving limbs. 

After an almost interminable wait, a gaggle of Asian travelers parted and revealed Emily pushing a baggage cart looking as if she could sleep for a week. A ridiculous grin broke out over him and he shouted her name even though it was lost in the cacophony of different languages and automated airport announcements. The string that connected him to her, tied under his ribs, contracted suddenly like a snapped elastic and he was moving before he thought about it, pushing past people more rudely than he intended. He felt this sort of molecular insistence to be near her again - it was almost painful. It had only been a month’s separation, but in that moment it seemed far too long. Her eyes landed on him as he got closer and she smiled in what he told himself looked a lot like relief.

“Hey. What an orde-”

He didn’t let her finish, instead pulling her against him and sinking into her lips. She seemed lost for a second and then melted into it, ignoring the giggles and whispers around them as they made a bit of a scene together. His hand slid into her hair as he curled her closer, mouth slipping over hers in wordless gratitude at seeing her again. Perhaps a part of him thought that she’d never come back despite all of the planning and messages over the weeks. When they broke apart, he didn’t let her go far - he didn’t think the string under his ribs could stand the strain again so quickly - and he quietly thrilled at the feel of her curves against him.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Ummm, hello.”

“Hi,” he grinned, all teeth and unrestrained joy. “Welcome home, Em. And Trouble.”

“Cary,” she corrected and his smile got impossibly wider.

“Welcome home, Cary.”

They grinned and held each other as the flood of people carried on with life around them. He hadn’t realized how disconnected and anxious he’d felt since he leaving London until it fell away when he reached for her. It was like discovering the pull of gravity again after floating around for too long untethered. Maybe that was the tribe thing she had mentioned: a binding, but one that you craved.

“I missed you,” she said quietly, reflecting his thoughts back to him. “You feel good.”

His heart gleefully leapt into his throat. “Thank God you’re here. My concentration has been abysmal for the past month… how did we ever manage to get any work done in the three years since you left the Unit?”

“Epic amounts of willful denial and caffeine most likely,” she chuckled. 

“Well, I’m happy to be done with denial but you’ll have to pry the caffeine from my cold, dead hands.” He held her cheek and leaned their foreheads together. “How are you feeling? You look tired…”

She sighed. “I’m exhausted actually. Making all of this happen has taken a lot of effort. And these days if I don’t get a nap in, Cary drops me like a prizefighter. It’s impressive how much control this kid has already. Could we… just go home?”

His body ached at the idea that wherever they were together was the golden ‘home’ in her mind. 

“Sure.” He let her go with a light kiss and then reached for her luggage cart which took much more force to move than he anticipated. “Jeez, Em, how did you manage all of these bags by yourself? It’s like they’re filled with rocks…”

“Jenkins helped. I guess he was eager to get me out of his hair permanently,” she smirked. “And these are just the essentials. You should see what I’m shipping over as freight at the end of the month.”

Reid raised his eyebrows and made a mental note to ask Morgan to accelerate his house hunting efforts; he highly doubted that all of this was going to fit into his one bedroom apartment. He huffed and put his back into pushing her rock collection toward the parking lot. 

“So, what are your immediate plans, besides a nap…”

“Well, I need a few days to acclimatize.” She hesitated as she walked beside him. He looked at her curiously, wondering about it. “Then I’m going over to Rossi’s place and get him up to speed on everything. It’s already set up. And… I want you to come with me, Spencer.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’m telling Dave _everything_ \- before I walk into the bullpen. I need him in my corner. And since you and I are partners in almost every sense of the term now, I think he should see that as well as hear about it. Getting him on board is essential to making this situation work, and, let’s face it, he has a soft spot for you.”

“A soft spot? You’re joking. He treats me like a pet nerd.”

“ _His_ pet nerd, Spence. He loves you like a son that his DNA had no hope in hell of ever creating.”

He gave her a doubting half-smile but secretly hoped that Rossi would approve. He was both excited and terrified to tell people about them. “All right. I wonder if this will convince him to stop calling me ‘kid’…”

She laughed loudly and rubbed his back as he pushed the cart. “Don’t hold your breath, dear.”

And she was right. When they told Rossi the news in his spacious living room two days later, his initial stunned silence was broken by him leaping up and pulling Reid in for a crushing hug that Reid had to work very hard at _not_ avoiding because of its scary intensity.

“Way to go, kid!” Rossi said as he squeezed Reid tightly. Reid’s shocked gaze landed on Emily who was watching them with a slightly watery grin. “The kid has a kid… who’d have thought it? And since you bamboozled Prentiss into being the mom, we know the baby won’t end up looking like a pipe cleaner in a sweater vest.”

Rossi leaned away and winked at Emily who just rolled her eyes at him.

“I can’t wait until the rest of the gang finds out,” Rossi continued with a maniacal glint to his eyes. “I’ll make popcorn beforehand… it’ll be quite a show.”

“Jesus, Dave, you’re horrible,” Emily smirked.

“I’m second-in-command horrible - a little respect for authority and your elders, Chief,” he grinned and kissed her on both cheeks. “Seriously though, I’m so pleased for you, Bella. A family for you - _finally._ And my family just got bigger by extension.”

Rossi looked to them both, and his gaze seemed a little watery now as well. Reid decided that sometimes you didn’t know how much people cared until a moment came along and practically shined a spotlight on it. Reid had been so wrapped up in the idea of having his own family, that he temporarily forgot that he was part of a motley one already.

While Rossi was overjoyed and supportive of the news, he became downright mischievous a week later when he convened the team in the conference room and then invited Emily to join them. Blank stares became riveted to her belly as she waved and blushed. Reid sat as quietly as he could, internally losing his cool even though they’d rehearsed how this would play out in his apartment.

“So, two things,” Emily began, a sarcastic smile curling her lips as her hand made a large circle over her belly. “There’s a bun in this oven.”

Reid looked around but the disbelieving stares continued, even Garcia, who ostensibly knew about it already. Rossi was grinning like a used car salesman.

“The second thing is: I’m your new Unit Chief.” Emily waited a beat for the news to settle. “Cue the mayhem.”

She stood back and watched them process everything. Reid was so anxious for something to happen that he felt like a cartoon character with a lit rocket tied to his back. More blinking happened and then the tension broke all at once.

“You’re the boss!”

“Oh my God - a baby!”

“How are you feeling? Maybe you should sit…”

“Wow… just WOW. Happy Monday, everybody!”

“Rossi, how long have you known?”

“Mark must be over the moon. When is he coming to join you?”

The question was from J.J. and she smiled beatifically as she rose from her seat and gave Emily a warm hug. Reid went stiff in his chair. Rossi just leaned back in his with a creak.

“Oh man, this is going to be great…” he grinned.

“What’s going to be great?” J.J. asked and then looked back to Emily.

“Mark and I broke up over a year ago,” she said, looking a little unsettled by the mention of his name.

“Well… who’s the dad then?” J.J. asked as delicately as she could.

All eyes turned to Emily and she suddenly froze. Reid watched her in the stunned tableaux and decided that she must be experiencing one of the hormonal tsunamis that occasionally rendered her inert. Instinct made him move, and he chalked that up to his own hormonal wave because his brain had no part in it whatsoever. He stood and walked to her side, his hand landing along her back and rubbing slow circles into it. He didn’t say anything, just watched her until she made eye contact and gave him a relieved smile at the gesture. A chorus of muted gasps filled the room. Rossi was chuckling quietly somewhere off to his right.

“Reid…” It was Lewis. Her voice held a note of awe, and Reid was a little awed that she was the one who reacted first. He looked at her; she seemed impressed. “Way to go you two.”

Reid blinked and then barked out a surprised laugh. Lewis was all right.

“Spence?” J.J.’s eyes got huge, looking between he and Emily until her smile cracked her astonishment and she grabbed them both into a hug. “Oh, _guys_ …”

“Waitwaitwait…” Garcia waved her bejeweled hands in front of her. “Doctor ‘Who Me?’ over here is the father?! How could you omit that piece of information, Emily?”

“I thought you knew…” Emily said. Reid thought she knew as well. He guessed that Garcia hadn’t gotten everything out of Morgan after all.

“I just thought that he was in on the secret! Not that you two were doing the horizontal mambo together…”

“Wait, Garcia knew?” J.J. asked.

“Morgan told me,” Garcia answered.

“Morgan knew?!” J.J. rebutted.

“All right, everyone hold on for a second. Calm down.” Emily extracted herself from J.J. and waved a hand in the air. “First things first: I get that this is shocking news. Lemme tell ya - it shocked the hell outta me too. And I’ll spend whatever time you need with each of you to go through it. But that’s personal.” She stepped to the conference table and tapped her finger on its surface. “Here, we have serious work to do. You all needed to know about Reid and the baby because a) I can’t hide it, and b) it will affect the way I run this Unit. I’m not another Hotch - I have my own ambitions for this team. But I will insist that we keep the workplace as professional as possible.”

The room fell quiet as everyone sensed that the Emily Prentiss who had returned to them wasn’t the Emily Prentiss who’d left three years prior.

“Reid and I have discussed this at length and are committed to working together as colleagues. It may not be possible to completely separate the personal from the professional, but we’re going to try. We will need your help with that.”

Emily made eye contact which each team member.

“Also, in a few months I’ll be on maternity leave. It’s not ideal timing but nothing can be done about that. In my absence Rossi will be in charge, and at all other times he and I will be working as a leadership team. If we play our cards right, the operation won’t skip a beat.”

Rossi nodded and everyone noticed. It popped the air of tension like a balloon.

“I’m glad to be home,” Emily added in a softer tone. “I’m excited about this opportunity and the chance to start a new family in the middle of an old one. But none of this works without you guys, so I need a commitment from you all that you can work within these new parameters. Can you do that?”

“Of course we can,” Lewis spoke up almost immediately. Though she had the least invested in the situation, she appeared the most confident and shot a look at the rest of them that dared them to do less. She stepped up a notch in Reid’s personal estimation. “I’m not much for convention in the first place. Bring it on.”

“Yes. We can. Sorry… it was just a lot of surprises for a Monday morning briefing…” J.J. smiled sheepishly.

“Oh Honey, I’ll be so professional you won’t even recognize me with a name tag,” Garcia gushed.

“I doubt that,” Emily smirked. “But thanks.”

“Just so long as you’re prepared for the necessary personal interrogation that will inevitably follow this meeting,” Garcia mumbled under her breath.

Emily rolled her eyes. Reid thought that she’d probably have to put an end to that personal tick - it wasn’t very Chief-like.

Rossi let out a big sigh and rolled his chair away from the table. Then he stood and flanked Emily’s other side, smiling.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now that we’re all clear about who’s doing whom and what around here, can we get back to our jobs? We’ve got a backlog of cases and a new Unit Chief to get up to speed…”

Rossi winked at Emily and she gave him a thumbs up as everyone took their seats again. Garcia launched a video review of their latest cases and everyone focused in on their individual contributions. Reid started taking copious notes, getting lost in the details quickly, before looking up and catching Emily staring at him. The look only lasted a moment but it was a warm reassurance. _See? It’s gonna be fine._ He smiled, going back to his notes, and for the first time he was absolutely convinced that it would be.


	21. Chapter 21

The news came on an innocuous Thursday as he waded through old sexual assault case files in a musty storeroom in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was just supposed to spend a day or two helping the locals build a preliminary profile of a rapist who kept eluding them. He was going to be in and out - no real time field investigating - and then back to D.C. Emily ordered him to do it and not to worry - they still had three weeks to go before the baby arrived. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he answered it without looking at the number.

“Dr. Reid,” he mumbled as he squinted at a detail in an arrest report.

“Reid.” Rossi sounded anxious. Reid stopped reading. “You need to come back. We’re sending the jet. It’ll be there in an hour.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Emily started bleeding.”

Reid’s whole body cramped painfully. It was as if he froze in place - every part of him was immovable except for the frantic crashing of his heart against his ribs.

“They’re doing an emergency C-section,” Rossi continued when he heard nothing.

“It’s too soon,” Reid whispered. _Please don’t take my family from me… I only just found them… pleasepleaseplease_

“Listen, kid, I’m with her. We’re at G.W.U. and when they took her into the surgical wing she was conscious and alert. She’s scared but strong. She asked for you, so you’re going to get on the jet and J.J.’s gonna pick you up when you land and drive you here, okay? I’m gonna text you updates every fifteen minutes until I see your scrawny ass.”

“It’s too soon,” he repeated as his mind scanned through mortality statistics for premature births in first time pregnancies.

“Reid, _focus!_ ” Rossi barked, and Reid’s spine automatically straightened. “Get your butt to the airport and get on the plane. I’m handling things here. No one’s messing with your ladies without going through me, capiche? Don’t get fragile on me now. Emily needs you.”

 _Emily needs you. You can do this, Genius… you were built for this._ His legs suddenly came back online and then he was up and moving, collecting his satchel and jacket before bursting through the storeroom door.

“I’m leaving now. Rossi, don’t let a single, damned thing happen to her,” he growled and picked up his pace until he was running out of the police station.

“Good man,” Rossi’s voice seemed to contain a smile. “I’ll text you in twelve minutes. Start counting.”

The flight was excruciating, and then the ride from the airstrip to the hospital seemed to take forever even though he was dimly aware that J.J. was driving as recklessly as she dared. Rossi kept texting but the updates were a lot of nothing: _still in surgery, no news yet, am threatening nurses with federal charges if they don’t keep me up to date…_ When they got to the hospital, J.J. just pushed him out of the car and yelled, “Ninth floor. Use the west elevators.” He skidded out onto the linoleum of the surgical floor looking frantic until his eyes landed on Rossi berating someone at a nurse’s station. He ran towards him, his sneakers making an unholy racket in the relative calm of the hallway.

“Rossi!”

Rossi turned and his expression eased away from ferocity for an instant. “Finally.” He turned back to the harried nurse. “Okay _this_ is Ms. Prentiss’s partner. Will you PLEASE give us an update on her and the baby’s status _now?_ ”

The nurse turned and gave Reid a slightly disbelieving look. “You’re the father?”

“Yes. How is she? Is the baby all right?” It came out all as one word.

“Ms. Prentiss is in recovery now. She’ll be a bit groggy for the next twenty minutes or so, and then the doctor will speak to her. You’ll be shown to her then.”

“What about the baby?” Rossi growled pointedly.

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give you that information - it has to come from the doctor.”

“This is crazy,” Reid barked and the nurse actually jumped. “You can’t even tell me if my baby is al-…” He stopped and swallowed the word back. “What is the point of you?”

He felt Rossi’s hand on his shoulder at the same time as the nurse seemed to remember that her purpose was _to comfort_. Her voice softened slightly. “Let me go check in on her. I’ll see if I can get you in there immediately.”

She hustled away and Reid dug his fingers into the worn counter of the nurse’s station until his nails complained.

“I can’t…” he started.

“Yes you can, kid.” Rossi’s grip tightened.

Ten minutes later, the nurse was showing him how to disinfect himself and get into a sterile smock and booties.

“Just a precaution,” she murmured before leading him down a corridor so eerily quiet that he thought it was impossible that anyone there was alive.

Then he was in a startlingly bright room with D.C. sunshine streaming through a window highlighting Emily in the teal sheets of a hospital bed. She looked wan, with red circles under her eyes, but when she saw him she smiled brilliantly. It was then he noticed that she was holding something.

“There you are,” she croaked and he was moving before she finished saying it.

“Emily…”

“You missed it,” she said as he sat in the chair next to the bed. “We couldn’t wait.”

He said her name again and this time it came out broken as he blinked too hard.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, leaning forward with a wince. “We’re both gonna be fine.”

“Is… is she?”

“He. She’s a he. So much for mother’s intuition.”

A boy? He had a son…

Emily smiled at his blank expression and then turned the tiny bundle in her arms so that he could see. “Hey there, Cary, meet your Dad.”

Absurdly, Reid waved at his newborn son, then he was reaching for him as Emily leaned to hand him over. Reid gently collected him up mesmerized by how small he seemed in his hands, and his pink, creased expression, and the way his little mouth opened in a miniscule yawn. He was wearing a tiny toque and appeared… well, _bored_ with the situation. It was so ludicrous that Reid laughed out loud.

“He’s so… normal. Totally normal. And he’s wearing a hat.” He was just babbling now, bleeding off hours of anxiety. “Where’d you get that hat, Cary Prentiss…”

“Cary _Reid_ ,” she corrected and he looked up at her in astonishment. She just smiled and shrugged. “It sounds better, don’t you think?”

He just stared at her for what seemed like ages not registering anything but her, amazingly vivid in the bland room, and the warm weight of his son in his hands. His vision started to blur and he blinked hard several times. He thought he’d wrestled some control over himself, but when he finally spoke again, his voice was wet and uneven.

“Are you two really okay?”

“Yeah, we are. They’re gonna keep us for a couple of days for observation because his entrance into the world was so dramatic, but we’re gonna be fine. They aren’t even keeping him in the NICU - he’s fully developed, just a little underweight.” She shifted and winced again. “I’m sore as hell though. And exhausted.”

She eased herself back into the bed and gave him another smile. She did look exhausted and his body throbbed with an overwhelming pulse of gratitude to see it. The effort that she put into having this - having _them_ \- took his breath away. To go from colleagues, to friendship, to this rabid, crazy joy seemed impossible to him. Hadn’t he told her once that the idea that she’d love him was impossible?

“I adore you,” he whispered. “Thank you - this is all I ever wanted.”

He curled Cary closer to his chest and then quickly looked down and smiled as his son made a little murmur and then settled. When he turned his eyes back to Emily with an expression of look-at-what-he-did on his face, her gaze seemed huge and her cheeks were wet.

“Sweetheart…” he began.

“Are you still carrying that ring around in your pocket?”

The surprises never stopped with her. How did she know about _that?_ He nodded dumbly.

“Let me see it.”

He shuffled Cary snuggly against his side and rooted around under the smock in his jacket pocket until he felt the jewelry box that had become a necessary accessory for the past four months. He handed it to her and she brushed his fingers gently as she claimed it. She opened the lid and pulled the ring out, flipping it in her grasp to take in the design that was a few generations out of fashion, much like him. She smiled when she saw the three small stones set into the band, and he knew she got it: one of each member of their tribe. Then she squinted and held it up to the light.

“ _Io suiicien lui dami amo_ ,” she murmured.

“It means-”

“ _You are in place of the friend that I love_ ,” she translated without hesitation. Yep, the surprises never ended with her.

“You know your medieval languages,” he grinned with new admiration.

“I have my moments.” A smile curled her lips and then she slid the ring on without preamble making his heart rocket around inside his chest. She looked at him, holding their son and struggling through his latest heart attack over her. “Now you have the answer to that question you never asked.”

“Perfect,” he blurted, wondering if it were possible to die of happiness.

“Well, probably not,” she smiled as she shuffled to the side and patted the mattress for him to join her. “But it’s good to aim high.”

He handed Cary to her and then crawled into the tiny space on the bed, trying to fold his long skinniness around her. His lips brushed her temple after he settled, and then they both just stared down at the newest member of their tribe in wonder. Cary slept in their shared grip oblivious to the startling fact that they almost never happened and that he very nearly didn’t exist.


	22. Chapter 22

Reid stumbled into the bathroom and tried to make his blurry reflection in the mirror coalesce. It took a few minutes, some cold water to the face, and the application of contact lenses, but eventually he made it happen. He blinked at his bare chest, his pajama pants covered in caffeine molecules, the tangled knot that was his morning bedhead, and the ever-present dark smudges under his eyes. He yawned, his jaw making an impressive crack in the process, and then he analyzed his reflection critically: he definitely looked tired, but he wasn’t sure that he looked older. Then something caught his eye and he leaned in and squinted. _Is that a grey hair?!?_

There was a tremendous crash from somewhere beyond the master bedroom, and he startled momentarily until he heard an intimidating “What is going on up there? People are sleeping…”. He smirked and shook his head, pouring a dollop of shaving cream into his palm and smearing it over his face. The daily circus was already in full swing, and even if he wanted to there’d be no sleeping through it. He did a quick calculation as he ran his straight razor along his cheek: he probably hadn’t slept late in nearly five years. Sometimes you didn’t realize what luxuries you had until they disappeared.

There was more banging in the distance, quieter but still obvious, but he dismissed it when no yelling or howling followed it up. His tolerance for loud disruptions had expanded over the years, he thought ruefully as he made a few quick swipes around his sideburns. In time there was the sound of rapid footfalls and excited breathing behind him. He didn’t turn, but smiled anyway.

“How many times have we told you not to run in the house?”

“Daddy!” Cary rushed forward and Reid pulled the razor away from his face just as his son crashed into his legs. “Happy Birthday!”

“Ooof… thanks, Trouble.”

Cary grinned up at him like a fiend. He had Reid’s smile but Emily’s coloring and dark eyes. They had yet to figure out what personality traits he’d gained from either of them, but he lived up to his nickname almost daily. Reid decided to ascribe that to Emily’s DNA. Cary raised his arms in a universal gesture of ‘up’ and Reid lowered his razor to lift his son up to stand on the bathroom counter. Emily would kill him if she saw it but Cary liked pretending that he was the same height as his father.

“There are presents, Daddy,” he said with enthusiasm before becoming entranced by Reid’s shaving technique.

“Oh really?” Reid smirked. “Did you check them out for me?”

Cary nodded vigorously. “Some are real heavy.”

“ _Really_ heavy,” he corrected. That explained the banging. “What do you think they are?”

“Books,” Cary said matter-of-factly and then drew a smiley face in the foam on Reid’s jaw with his finger. “Mom likes getting you books.”

“I like _getting_ books.”

Cary made a face and then it quickly changed as an idea occurred to him. “But maybe some of them are toys!”

“That possibility exists,” Reid chuckled. “If I get any, you’ll have to show me how to play with them, okay?”

Cary wiggled excitedly and Reid had to move quickly to prevent him from falling off the counter. “Hey, careful, kiddo. No brain injuries allowed on my birthday…” 

This kid would be the death of him, he was certain. But the way Cary looked at him sometimes when they played together or when he read to him or when he sprawled himself over Reid for no good reason at all other than children were just tiny, rubbery monkeys… He looked at Reid like he had all the answers, that everything Reid did was grand and adventurous and he was so happy to be along for the ride. Well, none of the parenting books told you that it felt like winning the lottery when you realized that your child had snuck up on you and ruthlessly stolen your heart when you weren’t looking. 

Cary started drawing hieroglyphs of his own making into what was left of the shaving foam on Reid’s face. The kid was completely unhelpful.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Making breakfast.” Cary focused on what he was drawing, sticking the tip of his tongue out of the side of his mouth. As far as Reid could tell, he was making a rocket-propelled giraffe. “She told me to be quiet.”

“Yes, I heard,” he deadpanned. He was sure that the whole street had heard. Prentiss bellows tended to skew to the epic side of the spectrum. 

“Why do you do this?” Cary poked at Reid’s cheek.

“Shave? Ummm, well, Mommy has despaired that I will ever be able to achieve a grown-up beard.” Cary gave him a weird look and Reid rolled his eyes. “It’s what men do.”

“Can I shave?”

“You don’t have any hair to shave yet, but you will some day.” Cary looked crestfallen, like he’d disappointed his father somehow. “Hey, do you want to help _me_ shave?”

Cary brightened and Reid wrapped his son’s fingers over his on the razor. “So, the important thing is that this is very, very sharp and the face and neck are very, very sensitive, okay? You have to be so careful, Cary…”

Cary’s expression got deadly serious as he bent to his task. His tongue poked out again and Reid had to stifle a grin. His hand guided the razor, and Cary’s grip, down his jaw, then they both rinsed the blade clean before making another pass. 

“Always use plenty of foam and clean the blade often,” Reid murmured as they worked together in the mirror’s reflection. “The curves are tricky - you need to be extra careful with them or you’ll cut yourself.”

“Does it hurt?” Cary asked, a little worried.

“The cuts can sting, but shaving doesn’t hurt. Everyone cuts themselves at some point.” They cleared Reid’s face and just had the side of his throat left. “The throat is important because of this…”

He placed Cary’s fingers along his pulse, and then he mimicked the movement along Cary’s neck. “Feel that? That’s blood moving through something called the carotid artery. That blood helps to power your brain, and you know how important the brain is.”

“It makes everything go,” Cary said solemnly.

“It does. The carotid artery is very close to the skin in your neck - that’s why you can feel it. You must never, ever cut the carotid artery - that’s dangerous. But don’t worry, that won’t happen if you take your time and are very careful. I’ll show you…”

Emily called out from a distance. “Where are you, you little monster? It’s way too quiet now…”

Cary was about to yell in response, but Reid watched as he clamped down on that and focused on what his hand was doing as it cleared the last of the foam from his Dad’s neck safely.

“In here,” he whispered instead. Reid had to stop himself from laughing.

An instant later, Reid heard Emily’s voice from the bathroom doorway. “Well, this requires an explanation…”

Reid took the razor from his son and rinsed it while keeping his other hand on his side to balance him. He looked up and saw Emily clamping down hard on a smile of her own.

“I helped Daddy shave!” Cary said delightedly. “Because he’s a man and I’m a man too!”

“You certainly are,” Emily chuckled and walked to the counter where she grabbed Cary around the waist and tickled him with her free hand. He squirmed like an electrified snake. “A loud, wild, tiny little man.”

Reid backed up, because tickle flailing could get intense, and laughed as Emily manhandled their son like a bag of laundry and threatened to ‘eat him up’ as she nuzzled his neck.

“Not the cary-did arty, Mom!” Cary shrieked while he squirmed. “It’s powering my brain!”

Emily looked puzzled.

“Carotid artery, Cary,” Reid corrected as he reached for the aftershave. “Don’t worry, Mommy knows it’s powering your brain. She won’t eat it. C’mere, kiddo, there’s one last thing we have to do…”

He splashed the aftershave in his hands and smoothed them across his jaw while Cary watched dangling limply in Emily’s arms. Then Reid stepped forward and ran his palms along Cary’s jaw too.

“There. All done.” He kissed his son’s forehead lightly. “You were a great help.”

“Mmmm, and now you _smell_ like a man. Delicious.” Emily dove back into Cary’s neck with gusto. “I really will eat you up now…”

“No, no, no!” Cary squealed. “Mommy, put me down! Put me down!”

Emily wrestled with him for a moment and then acted as if Cary had successfully struggled free. As soon as his feet hit the ground he was off like a shot.

“You can’t eat me!” he called out tauntingly as he ran.

Emily sagged against the counter, a warm sort of Saturday lethargy leaking out of her as she smiled. “God, where does he find the energy? It isn’t even nine a.m. yet… So, shaving, huh?”

“He asked.” Reid shrugged.

“Yer too much,” she grinned and then leaned in to place a soft, slow kiss on his lips. He drew her against him with an arm around her waist and stretched out the kiss from tender familiarity to something more intense. His exhaustion evaporated as they moved together. He couldn’t help it; she was wearing that grey top that drove him nuts. He wondered if that was part of his birthday present.

“Happy Birthday,” she said breathlessly when they parted. She was blushing. After five years, he could still make her blush… “The big four-oh. How does it feel?”

“Quantitatively no different than yesterday, though I think I spotted a grey hair.” He drew her hair away from her neck and left a wet, showy kiss along it. “Got any advice?”

“Stop aging immediately. There’s absolutely no upside to it.” She arched into his grip. He moaned softly and wished that he could get twenty uninterrupted minutes with her _right now._

“Okay, done.” He pressed them both back against the counter and took her mouth again as his hands crawled up under her shirt. Maybe he could be quick…

“Spence, we can’t,” she whined but her fingers bit into the bare skin of his back. “He’ll be back in a minute… he’s so excited… you’d think it was his birthday…”

“You shouldn’t have worn that top then,” he growled and lifted her until she sat on the counter. Then he ground himself meaningfully between her thighs. “Want you, sweetheart. And it’s my birthday.”

“Jesus, I never get tired of hearing that…” She kissed him back hard and moved one of his hands to roughly cup her breast under the tantalizing shirt. He squeezed her and she keened, arching her chest into his.

“I never get tired of seeing you with Cary,” he breathed into her mouth. “Makes me feel… undeniably alive. Known. My little clan of two.” He licked her lower lip between his and sucked it until she moaned shamelessly. It was an incredible power rush to know that she still wanted him this much. “I thought it would wear off in time… get old maybe…”

She groaned. He felt her nails dig into his back and he shivered a little when he sensed the cool skim of the ring on her left hand. “Alright,” she licked into his mouth. “Just a quickie, c’mon…”

“Mommy!” Cary’s voice echoed from another part of the house. “I’m hungry!”

They sagged against each other, panting and grasping futilely.

“Dammit! That kid’s timing is either perfect or disastrous…” she complained.

“Disastrous. Disastrous Trouble.” Reid tried to pull back and rearrange himself. _Happy bloody birthday._

“Mommy!”

“Okay, Cary, I’ll be right down,” Emily called out, and then ran her fingers roughly through Reid’s hair while kissing him thoroughly. “To be continued, dear.”

“You promise?” he gasped but backed away so she could stand up. “Because I have a longstanding bathroom fetish about you and I’d sell our son to a passing caravan of itinerant gypsies to indulge in it.”

She laughed as she straightened her clothes. “No, you wouldn’t, and yes, I promise. We just have to get through some laundry, grocery shopping, party prep with Garcia, possibly a tiny human tantrum at some point in the day, and probably a bunch of half inebriated team members determined to outstay their welcome this evening.”

“Jeez, we won’t be good for anything beyond passing out after all of that,” he grumbled.

“Sure we will,” she winked and dragged him back to her lips with authority. “You’re only forty, after all. I have high expectations, Doctor.”

She released his lips with a soft pop and then slid from his arms as he felt uselessly horny. Twelve hours minimum before he could get at her… maybe he could explain the situation to Rossi and get him to marshal the troops into an early exit this evening… _Please make everyone leave - I want to do unmentionable things to my woman…_ Emily walked slowly to the doorway, swaying her hips with extra exaggeration, then she turned back to face him with a teasing smile.

“Hurry up, Birthday Boy. I made crepes.”

He thought back to the morning in Chicago that started it all. He’d been overwhelmed then, never dreaming that anything more than an unplanned kiss was possible. Now they had each other - more than that - they understood one another as well. And he had an answer to his question about familiarity: it never got stale. He’d take her knowing gaze or the joy they’d built while raising their son over anything else. If it was boring to be happy, then he was really, fucking boring. Emily stopped and watched him with a curious wrinkle on her brow.

“You okay?”

_Completely. Utterly. I’ll never be able to tell you how much._

“Mamihlapinatapai,” he murmured and watched as two pink smudges colored her cheeks. It meant something slightly different now, but he hoped that she understood nonetheless. She ducked her gaze.

“You know, I lied to you five years ago,” she murmured eventually and his attention sharpened. She waited a moment and then looked him in the eye, honest and unashamed of her statement. “Remember when I told you that I wanted to prove how I felt to you, and you said that I couldn’t because if I tried I’d be doing it for the rest of my life?”

He nodded, unsure of where this was going.

“Well, after that night in Austin, I made it my mission to give you proof, no matter how long it took.”

He swallowed hard but she just watched him from the doorway with a benign smile.

“But… why?” he stumbled. “I-I told you that proof wasn’t what I needed…”

“Maybe you didn’t need it, Spence, but I still had to show it to you,” she said quietly, and then her expression transformed into something bare and unguarded. “The only shot I had at getting what I’d always wanted was to give _you_ what you’d always wanted.”

Home. She was talking about that indefinable completeness that they’d somehow turned into their day-to-day existence: the beckoning candle in the dark. She’d given him herself, and Cary, so she’d have that sense of comfort that she’d rejected from every other person who’d offered it to her. It turned out that she only wanted it from him. It was a radical, inconceivable shift in her, and now he saw the past five years for the tremendous gift that it was. _Happy Birthday._

“Thank you,” he whispered in new, stunned admiration.

She blushed again while giving him a great smile, and then she pushed herself away from the doorframe like an awkward teenager who’d just admitted her crush to a boy she liked. She was beautifully nerdy when she allowed herself to be.

“I just thought you should know.” She bit her lip and hung onto the edge of the doorframe for an instant before grinning again.

“Come on, get dressed. We have so much to do.” She said it like she couldn’t wait to get started, and suddenly, he couldn’t wait either. His exhaustion was gone. The possibilities seemed endless now.

“Yes, dear.” He said it the same way he sometimes said “Yes, Boss” to her at work, and she lobbed a towel at him as he grinned and ducked. 

And then she was gone, leaving an amused “Impossible” muttered in her wake. He dressed quickly, trying to find something in his wardrobe that would frustrate her as much as that grey top did him, and then descended to the kitchen for birthday plans and breakfast with his fellow tribe members.


End file.
